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RE D THE FOREWORD
RICH RD
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ClNCINNATl All.
OHIO
The
Fundamentals
Testimony
Voiume IX
Compliments of
Two
Christian Laymen
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The
R1C H R0 LIN D AMOOO
2 700 GL.E.NWAY It.V E.
C lNC INNA l l
4
OH IO
undamentals
· A Testimony to the Truth
To the La w and to tht Testimony '
Is a iah 8:20
Volume IX
Compliments of
Two Christian La ymen
TESTIMONY PUBLISHING COMPAN Y
Not Inc.)
i08 La SalJe Ave., Chicago, Ill., U. S. A.
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FOREWORD
The ninth volume of THE FUNDAMENTALS oes, like
it
predecessors, to Eng lish-speaking P rote stant pastors, evangel
ists , missionaries, theological professors, theological students,
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giving to God for the rich blessing which He has besto wed
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sands of Christian men and women in almost every land bear
witness, and we accompany it with our prayers. May the Lord
use the carefully and pray erfu lly selected articles of this ninth
volume to His glory and to the advancem ent of His cause, to
the conver sion of sinners, to the str engthening of the faith of
earnest believers, and to the re-establi shment in the truth of
those who are wavering in their faith.
We ask the thou sands who have jo ined our Circle of Prayer
and all earnest friends of ' 'THE. FUNDAMENTALS o plead
in faith with Him who heareth and answereth prayer, that Hi s
smile and blessing continue to rest upon the Two Christian
Laymen whose consecration and liberality make possible the
· publication and the free distribution of these vol tunes, and that
He lead and guide all who are connected with the great work.
After earnest, prayerful consideration the Two Christian
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The volumes will remain free to all classes of Christian
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All editorial correspondence should be addressed to Th e
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( See Publisher s' Notice, Page 128.)
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ONTENTS
CHAPTER
PAGE
I THE TRUE CHURCH .•.•••..•• ·. • • . . . . • • . • • • • • • . s
By the late Bishop Ryle.
II. THE MOSAIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH. • . 10
By Prof. George Frederick Wright, D. D., LL. D.,
Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio.
III.
THE WISDOM OF THIS WORLD •••••••••••.••..•.
22
By Rev. A. W.
Pitzer,
D. D.,
LL.
D.,
Salem, Virginia.
IV. HOLY SCRIPTURE AND MODERN NEGATIONS. • • . • • • . 31
By Prof. James Orr, D. D.,
United Free Church College, Glasgow, Scotland.
V.
SALVATION BY GRACE •••.••.•.••..•.•••.••••••••
48
By Rev.
Thomas Spurgeon, ·
London, England.
VI.
DIVINE EFFICACY OF PRAYER. . . . . . • . • • . • . • • • . • •
66
By Arthur T Pierson.
VII.
WHAT
CHRIST TEACHES CONCERNING FUTURE
RETRIBUTION .. . . . . . . . . . • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • . . • 8
By Rev. Wm. C.
Procter, F. Ph.,
Croydon, England.
VIII. A
MESSAG E FROM 1\thssroNs • • •
95
By Rev. Chas . A. Bowen, A. M., Ph. D.,
Olympia, Washington.
IX.
EDDYIS:NI:
COMMONLY CALLED CHRISTIAN SCIEKCE . 111
By Rev. Maurice E. Wilson, D. D.,
Dayton, Ohio.
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THE FUNDAMENTALS
VOLUME IX
CHAPTER I
THE TRUE CHURCH
BY THE LATE BISHOP RYLE
Do you belong to the one true Church; to the Chur ch out
side of which there is no salvation? I do not ask where you
go on Sunday; only ask, Do you belong to the one true
Church?
Where is this one true Church? vVhat is this one true
Church like? What are the marks by which this one true
Church may be known? You n1ay
well
ask such questions.
Give me your attention, and will prov ide you with some
answers.
The one t rue Church
is composed of all believers in the
Lord Jes us It is made up of all God's elect-of all con
,·erted men and women-o f all true Chris tians. In whom
soever we can discern the election of God the Father, the
sprinkling of
the
blood of God the Son,
the
sanctifying work
of God the Spirit, in that person we see a member of Chris t's
true Church.
It is a Chu rch of whic h all the mem bers have the same
marks
They are
all
born of the Spirit; they
all
possess
repentance towards God, fa ith towards our Lord J esus
Christ, and holiness of life and conversation. They all hate
sin, and they all love Christ. T hey worship differently and
after various fashions; some worship with a form of prayer,
J:
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6
The Fundamentals
and some with none ; some worship kneeling, and some stand
ing; but they all worship with one heart. They are all led
by one Spirit; they all build upon one foundation; they all
draw their religion from one single Book-that is the Bible.
They are all joined to one great center -t hat is Jesus Christ.
They all even now can say with one heart, Hallelujah ; and
they can all respond with one heart and voice, Amen and
.Amen.
It is a Church
which is dependent upon no ministers upon
earth
however much it values tho se who preach the Gospel
to its member s. The life of its members does not hang upon
church-membership, and bapti sm, and the Lord's Supper
although they highly value these things, when they are to be
had. But it has only one great Head--one Shepherd, one
chief Bishop-and that is Je sus Christ. He alone, by His
Spirit, admits the members of this Church, though ministers
1nay
show the door. Till He opens the door no man
on earth can open it-neither bishops. nor presbyters, nor
\
convocations, nor synods . Once let a man repent and believe
the Gospel, and that moment he becomes a member of this
Church. Like the penitent thief, he may have no opportunity
of
being baptized; but he has that which is
far
better than any
water-baptism-the baptism of the Spirit. He may not be able
to receive the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper; but he
eats Christ's body and drinks Christ's blood by faith every
day he lives, and no minister on earth can prevent him. He
may be excommunicated by ordained men, and cut off from
the outward ordinances of the professing Church; but all
the ordained men in the world cannot shut him out of the
true Church.
It is a Church
whose e:ristence does not depend on forms
ceremonies, cathedrals, churches, chapels, pulpits, fonts, vest
tnents, organs, endowments, money, kings, governments, mag
istr~tes, or any act of favor whatsoever from the hand of
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The True Church
7
man. It has often lived on and continued when all these
things have been taken from it; it has often been driven into
the wilderness or into dens and caves of the earth. by those
who ought to have been its friends. Its existence depends
on nothing but the presence of Christ and His Spirit; and
they being ever with it, the Church cannot die.
This is the Church to which the Scriptural titles of present
honor and privilege, and the promises of future glory, es~
pccially belong; this is the body of Christ; this is the flock
of Christ; this is the household of faith and the family of
God; this is God's building, God's foundation, and the tem
ple of the Holy Ghost. This is the Church of the first-born,
·whose names are written in heaven; this is the royal priest
bood, the chosen generation, the peculiar people, the purchase~
possession, the habitation of God, the light of the world; the
salt
and the wheat of the earth; thi s is the Holy Catholic
Church of the Apostle's Creed; this is the One Catholic and
Apostolic Church of the Nicene Creed; this is that Church
to which the Lord Jesus pron1ises, the gates of hell shalI
not prevail against it , and to which He says, I am with you
always, even unto the end of the world ( Matt.
16: 18;
28 :20).
This is the only Church which possesses true unity Its
members are entirely agreed on all the weightier matters of
religion, for they are all taught by one Spirit. About God,
and Christ, and the Spirit, and sin, and their own hearts, and
faith, and repentance, and necessity of holiness, and the value
of the Bible, and the importance of prayer, and the resur
rection, and Judgment to come-about all these points they
are of one mind. Take three or four of them, strangers to
one another, from the remotest corners of the earth; examine
them separately on these points; you will find them all of
one judgment.
This is the only Church which possesses true sanctity It
members are all holy. They are not merely holy by profession,
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8
The Fundanientals
holy in name and holy in the judgment of charity; they
are all holy in act and deed and reality and life and truth.
They are all more or less conformed to the image of Jesus
Christ. No unholy n1an belongs to this Church.
Thi~ is the only Church which is truly catholic It is not
the Church of any one nation or people; its members are to
be found in every part of the world where the Gospel is
received and believed. It is not confined within the limits
of any one country or pent up within the pale of any par
ticular forms or outward government. In it there is no
difference between ] ew and Greek black man and white Epis·
copalian and Presbyterian-b ut faith in Christ is all. Its mem
bers will be gathered from north and south and east an<l
west in the last day and will be of every name and tongue
but all one in Jesu s Christ.
This is the only Church which is truly
apostolic
t
is
built on the fou nda tion laid by the Apostles and holds the
doctrines which they preached. The two grand object s at
which its members aim are apostolic faith and apostolic
practice; and they consider the man who talks of following
the Apostles without posses sing these two things to be no
better than sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.
This is the on ly Church
which is certain to endure unto
the end Nothing can alt ogether overthrow and destroy it.
I ts members n1ay be per secuted oppressed imprisoned beaten
beheaded burned; but the tru e Church is never altogether ex
tinguished; it rises again from its afflictions; it lives on
thr ough fire and water. The Pharaohs the H erods the Neros
the bloody Marys have labored in vain to put down this
Church; they slay th eir thousand s and then pass away and go
to their own place. The true Church outlives them all and sees
them buried each in his turn. It is an anvil that has broken
many a hammer in this world and will break many a hammer
still; it is a bush which often burning yet is not consumed.
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The True Church 9
This is the Church which does the work of Christ upon
earth Its members are a little flock, and few in number,
compared with the children of the world; one or two here, and
two or three there. But these are they who shake the universe;
these are they who change the fortunes of kingdoms by their
prayers; these are they who are the active workers for spread
ing the knowledge of pure religion and undefiled; these are the
life-blood ot a country, the shield, the defense, the stay and the
suppor t of any nation to which they belong.
This is the Church which shall be truly glorious at the
end.
When all earthly glory is passed away then shall thi s
Church be presented without spot before God the Father s
throne. Thrones, principalitie s, and powers upon earth shall
come to nothing; but the Church of the first-born shall shine
as the stars at the last, and be pre sented with joy befo re
the Father s thro ne, in the day of Chri st s appearing. Wh en
the Lord s jewels are made up, and the manifes tatio n of the
sons of God take s place, one Church only will be named, and
that is the Church of the elect.
Reader, this is the true Church to wjhich a man must l:se-
long
if
he would be saved . Till you belong to this , you are
nothing better than a lost soul. You may have countless out
ward privilege s ; you may enjoy great light, and knowledge
-but if
you do not belong to the body of Christ, your light,
and knowledge, and privileg es, will not save your soul. Men
fancy
if
they j oin this ch~rch or th at church, and become com
rnunicants, and go through certain fo rms , that all must e
right with their souls. All were not Isra el who were called
Israel, and all are not members of Christ s body who pro fess
thems elves Chri st ians. Take notfre you may be a staunch
Episcop alian, or Presbyterian, or Independent, or Baptis t, or
Wesleyan, or Plymouth Brother-and yet not belong to the
true Church. And if you do not, it will be better at last if you
had never been born.
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CHAPTER II
THE MOSAIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCII
BY PROFESSOR GEORGE FREDERICK WRIGHT, D. D., LL D.J
OBERLIN COLLEGE OBERLIN, OHIO
During the last quarter of a century an influential school
of critics has deluged the world with articles and volumes at-
tempting to prove that the Pentateuch did not originate d_ur-
ing the time of Moses, and that most of the laws attributed ·
to him did not come into existence until severa l centuries after
his death, and many of them not till the time of Ezekiel.
By
these critics the patriarchs are relegated to the realm of myth
or dim legend and the history of the Pentateuch generally is
discredited. In answering these destructive contentions and
defending the history which they discredit we can do no bet-
ter than to gi_vea brief summary of the arguments of Mr.
Harold M. Wiener, a young orthodox Jew, who is both a well
established barrister in London, and a scholar of the widest
attainments. What he has written upon the subject during the
last ten years would fill a thousand octavo pages; while our
condensation must be limited t~ less than twenty. In approach-
ing the subject it comes in place to consider
I. THE BURDEN OF PROOF
The Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch has until very
recent times been accepted without question by both Jews
and Christians. Such acceptance, coming down to us in un-
broken line from the earliest times of which we have any
infortnation, gives it the support of what is called general
consent, which, while perhaps not absolutely conclusive, com·
·pels those who would discre dit it to produce incontrovertible
opposing evidence. But the evidence which the critics produce
10
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7:~ Mosaic Authorship of
the
Pentateuch
11
in this case is wholly circumstantial, consisting of inferences
derived from
a
literary analysis of the documents and from
the
application of a discredited evolutionary theory concern -
ing the development of human institutions.
II. FAILURE OF THE ARGUMENT FROM LITERARY
ANALYSIS
(a) Evidence of Text ·ual Criticism
It is an instructive commentary upon the scholarly pr e-
tensions of this whole school of critics that, without adequate
examination of the facts, they have based their analysis of the
Pentateuch upon the text which is found in our ordinary He-
brew Bibles. While the students of the New Testament have
expended an immense amount of effort in the comparison of
manuscripts, and versions, and quotations to determine the or-
iginal text, the se Old Testament crit ics have done scarcely
anything in that direction. This is certainly a most unscholar-
Iy proceeding, yet it is admitted to be the fact by a higher
critic of no less eminence than Principal J. Skinner of .Cam-
bridge, England, who has been compelled to write:
I
do not
happen to know of any work which deals exhaustively with
the subject, the determination of the original Hebrew texts
from the critical standpoints.
Now the fact
is
that while the current Hebrew text ,
known as the Massoretic, was not established until about the
seventh century A. D., we have abundant material with
which to compare it and carry us back
to
that current a thou-
sand years nearer the time of the original composition of
the books. ( 1 The Greek translation known as the Septua-
gint was 1nade from Hebrew manuscripts current two or
three centuries before the Christian era. It is from this ver-
sion that most of the quotations in the New Testament are
rnade. Of the 350 quotations from the Old Testament in the
New, 300, while differing more or less from the Massoretic
text, do not differ materially from the Septuagint. (2) The
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12
The F undamental.s
Samaritans early broke away from the Jews and began the
transmission of a Hebrew text of the Pentateuch on an inde
pendent line which has continued down to the present day.
( 3) Besides this three other Greek versions were made long
before the establishment of the Massoretic text. The most
important
o these was one by Aquila, who was so punctilious
that he transliterated the word Jehovah
in
the old Hebrew
characters, instead of translating it by the Greek word mean
ing Lord as was done in the Septuagint. (
4)
Early Syriac
material often provides much information concerning the
original Hebrew text. (5) The translation into Latin known
as the Vulgate preceded the Massoretic text by some centuries,
and was made by Jerome, who was noted as a Hebrew scholar.
But Augustine thought it sacrilegious not to be content with
the Septuagint.
All this material furnishes ample ground for correcting
in minor particulars the current Hebrew text; and this can
be
done on well established scientific principles which largely
eliminate conjectural emendations. This argument has been
elaborated by a 'number of scholars, not ably by Dahse, one of
the most brilliant of Germany's younge r scholars, first in
the
Archiv fuer Religions-Wissenschaft'
for
1903,
pp. 305-
319, an~ again in an article which will appear in the
N eue
Kirchliche Zeitschrift
for thi s year; and he is following up
l1is attack on the critical th eories with an important book
entitled,
Textkritische M aterialien zur H exateuch frag e,,,
which wilt shortly be pub1ished in Germany. Although so
long a time has elapsed since the publication of his first
article on the subject, and in spite of the fact that it attracted
world-wide attention and has often been referred to since, no
German critic has yet produced an answer to it. In England
and America Dr. Redpath and Mr. Wiener have driven home
the argument. ( See Wiener's Essays in Pentateuchal Crit
icism , and Origin of the Pentateuch. )
On bringing the light of thi s evidence to bear upon the
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The Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch 13
subject some remarkable results are brought out, the most
important of which relate to the very foundation upon which
the theories concerning the frag1nentary character
o
the
Pentateuch are based. The most prominent clue to the docu-
mentary division is derived from the supposed use by different
writers of the two words,
]
ehovah and Elohim,'' to des-
ignate the deity. Jehovah was translated in the Septuagint
by a word meaning Lord , which appears in our authorized
version in capitalized form, LORD. The revisers of 1880,
however, have simply transliterated the word, so that J e-
hovah usually appears in the revision wherever LORD ap-
peared in the authorized version. Elohi1n is everywhere trans -
lated by the general word for deity, God.
Now the original critical division into documents was made
on the supposition that several hundred years later than Moses
there arose two schools of writers, one of which, in Judah,
used the word Jehovah when they spoke of the deity, and
the other, in the Northern Kingdom, Elohim . And so the
critics came to designate one set o passages as belopging
to the J document and the other to the E document. These
they supposed had been cut up and pieced togeth er by a later
editor so as to make the existing continuous narrative. But
when,
as frequently occurred, one of these words
is
found
in passages where it is thou ght the other word should have
been used, it is suppo sed, wholly on theoretical ground s, that
a mistake had been made by the editor, or, as
they call him,
the redactor, and so with no further ceremony the objec-
tion is arbitrarily removed without consufting the direct tex-
tual evidence.
But upon comparing the early texts, versions, and quota-
tions it appears that the words, Jehovah and Elohim,
were so nearly synonymous that there was originally little uni-
formity in their use. J ehovah is the Jewish name of the
deity, and Elohim the
title.
The use of the words
is
precisely
like that of the English in referring to their king or the
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14
The u damentals
·Americans to their president. In ordinary usage, George V.'',
the king, and King George are synonymous in their mean
ing. Similarly Taft, the president, and President
Taft are used .by Americans during his term of office to
indicate an identical concept. So it was with the Hebrews.
''Jehovah was the name, Elohim the title, and Jehovah
Elohim -Lord God-signified nothing more. Now on con
sulting the evidence it appears that while in Genesis and the
first three chapters of Exodus ( where this clue was supposed
to be most deci sive) Jehovah occurs in the Hebrew text
148
times, in
118
of the se places other texts have either Elohim or
Jehovah Elohim. In th e same sect ion, while Elohim alone
occurs
179
times in the Heb rew, in 49 of the passages one or
the other designation takes its place; and in the second and
third chapters of Genesis whe re the Hebrew text ha s Jehovah
Elohim (LORD God) 23 time s, there is only one pass~ge in
which all the texts are unanimous on thi s point.
These facts, which are now amply verified, utterly de
stroy the value of the clue which the higher critics have all
along ostentatiou sly put forward to justify their division of
the Pentateuch into conflicting E and J documents, and th i.
the critics themselves are now compelled to admit. The onl y
answer which th ey are able to give is in Dr. Skinner's wor ds
that the analy sis is correct even if the clue which led to
it be false, addin g even if it were proved to be so altogether
fallacious, it would not be th e first titne that a wrong clue
has led to true results.
On further exan1inati on, in the light of present kno wJ
edge (as Wi ener and Dah se abundantly show), legitim ate
critici sm remove s a large number of the alleged difficulties
which are put forward by higher critic s and · renders of no
value many of the supposed clues to the various document s.
We have space to notice but one or two of these. In th e
Massoreti c tex t of Ex. 18: 6 we read that Jethro says to Moses.
I thy father-in-law Jethro am come, while in the seventh
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The M osa.ic Authorship of the Pentateuch 15
\erse t is said that Moses goes out to meet his father-in-law
and that th~y exchange greetings and then come into the tent.
But how could Jethro speak to Moses before they had had
a meeting? The critics say that this confusion arises from
the bungling patchwork of an editor who put two discordant
accounts together without attempting to cover up the discrep
ancy. But scientific textual criticisn1 completely removes the
difficulty. The 'Septuagint, the old Syriac version, and a copy
of the Samaritan Pentateuch, instead of I thy father-in
law Jethro am come , read, And one said unto Moses, be-
hold thy father-in-law Jethro co1nes. Here the corruption
of a single letter in the 1-Iebrew gives us behold in place of
I . When this is observed the objection disappears entirely.
Again, in Gen. 39 :20-22 Joseph is said to have been put
into the prison where the king's prisoners were bound. . . .
And the
keeper of the
prison
promoted him. But in chapter
40 :2-4, 7
it is said that he was in ward of the house of the
captain
of the
guard_ .. and the captain of the gua:rd pro
moted Joseph. But this discrepancy disappears as soon as an
effort is made to determine the original text. In Hebrew,
~'keeper of the prison and captain of the guard both begin
with the same word and in the passag es where the ct11 )
tain of the guard causes trouble by its appearance, the ~cp
tuagint either omitted the phrase or read keeper of the
vrison, in one case being supported also by the Vulgate.
In many other instances also, attention to the original text
removes the difficulties which have been manufactured from
apparent discrepancies in the narrative.
(b) Delusions of Literary Analysis.
But even on the assumption of the practical inerrancy of
the Massoretic text the arguments against the Mosaic author
ship of the Pentateuch drawn from the literary analysis are
seen to be the result of misdirected scholarship, and to be ut
terly fallacious. The long lists of words adduced as charac-
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16
The undamentals
teristic of the writers to whom the- various parts of the Pen
tateuch are assigned are readily seen to be occasioned by the
different objects aimed at in the portions from which the lists
are made.
Here, however, it is necessary to add that besides · he E
and J documents the critics suppose that Deuteronomy, which
they designate D , is an independent literary production writ
ten
i ~
he time of Josiah. Furthermore, the critics pretend
to have discovered by their analysis another document which
they call the Priestly Code and designate as P . This pro
vides the groundwork of n1ost of the narrative, and comprises
the entire ceremonial portion of the law. This document,
which, according to these critics did not come into existence
till the time of Ezekiel, large ly consists of special instructions
to priests telling them how they were to perform the sacrifices
and public ceremonials, and how they were to determine the
character of contagious diseases and un sanitary conditions.
Such instructions are necessarily made up largely of technical
language such as is found in the libraries of lawyers and phy-
1
sicians, and it is easy enou gh to select from such literature a
long list of words which are not to be found in contemporary
literature dealing with the ordinary affairs of life and aiming ·
directly at elevating the tone of morality and stimulating de
votion to higher spiritual ends. Furthermore, an exhaustive
exan1ination ( made by Chancellor Lias) of the entire list of
words found in this P document attributed to the time of
Ezekiel shows absolutel y no indica tion of their belonging to
an
-age
later than that of Moses .
The absurdity of the claim s of the higher critics to having
established the existence of different documents in the Pen
tateuch by a litera ry analysis has been shown by a variety of
examples. The late Profe ssor C. M. Mead, the most influ
ential of the American revisers of the translation of the Old
Testament, in order to exhibit the fallacy of their procedure,
took the Book of Rom ans and arbitraril y divided it into three
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The Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch 17
parts, according as the words Christ Jesus, Jesus, or
''God were used; and then by analysis showed that the lists
of peculiar words characteri stic of these three passages were
even more remarkable than those drawn up by the destructive
critics of the Pentateuch fron1 the three leading fragments
into which they had divided it.
The
argumen t from literary
analysis after the methods of the se cr itics would prove the
composite character of the Epistle
to
the Ro1nans as fully
as
that of the critics would pro ve the composite character of
the Pentateuc h. A distingui shed scholar, Dr. Hayman, form ...
erly head-master of Rugby, by
a
simila r analysis . demonstrated
the composite character of Robert Burns' little poem addressed
to a mouse, half of which is in the purest English and the
other half in the broade st Scotch dialect. By the same pro
cess it would be easy to prove three Macaulays and three
Miltons by selecting lists of words from the documents pre
pareµ by them when holdin g high political offices and from
their various prose and poetical writ ings .
III. MJSUNDERSTANDING LEGAL FORMS AND THE
SACRIFICIAL SYSTEM
Another source of fallacious reasoning into which these
critics have fallen arises
from
a misunderstanding of the
sacr ificial system
of
the Mosaic law. The destructive critic s
assert that there was no central sanctuary in Palestine until
several centuries after its occupation under Joshua, and that at
a later period all sacrifices by the people were for bidden ex
cept at the central place_when offered by the priests~ unless
it was where there had
been
a special theophany. But' these
statements evince an entire misunderstanding
or
misrepresen
tation of the £acts. In what the critics reckon as the olde st
documents
J and
E)
the people were ·required
three
time s
a year
to
present themselves with sacrifices and offering s
at the
house
of the
Lord (Ex. 34: 26; 23 :19).
Before the
building of the temple this house of the Lord wa s at Shiloh,.
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18
The undamentals
(Josh. 18: 1; Judges 18:31; 1 Sam. 2:24). The truth is that
the destructive critics upon this point make a most humiliating
mistake in repeatedly substituting sanctuaries for altars,''
assuming that since there was a plurality of altars in the time of
the Judges there was therefore a plurality of sanctuaries. ,They
have completely misunderstood the permission given in Ex.
20: 24: An altar of earth thou shalt make unto Me and shalt
sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings,
thy sheep, and thine oxen; in all places, A. V.; [in every
place, R.
V.],
where I record My name I will come unto thee
and I will bless thee. And
if
thou make Me an altar of stone,
thou shalt not build it of hewn stones. In reading this pas-
sage we are likely to be misled by the erroneous translation.
Where the revi sers read in every place and the authorized
version in all places the correct translation is in all the
place or in the whole place. The word is in the singular
number and has a definite article before it. The whole place
referred to is Palestine, the Holy Land, where sacrifices such
as the patriarchs had offered were always permitted to lay-
men, provided they made use only of an altar of earth or
unhewn stones which was kept free from the adornments and
accessories characteristic of heathen altars. These lay sac ·
rifices were recognized in Deuteronomy as well as in Exodus.
(Deut. 16: 21.) But altars of earth or unhewn stone, often
used for the nonce only and having no connection with a
temple of any sort, are not houses of God and will not be-
come such on being called sanctuaries by critics several thou-
sand years after they have fallen out of use.
In accordance with this command and permission the Jews
have always limited their sacrifices to the land of Palestine.
When exiled to foreign lands the Jews to this day have ceased
to offer sacrifices. It is true that an experiment was made
of setting up a sacrificial system in Egypt for a time by a
certain portion of the exiles; but this was soon abandoned.
lTltimately a synagogue system was established and worship
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The Mosaic uthorship of the Pentateuch 19
outside of Palestine was limited to prayer and the reading
of Scriptures.
But besides the lay sacrifices which were continued from
the patriarchal times and guarded against perversion, there
were two other classes of offerings established by statute ;
namely, those individual offerings which were brought to the
house of God at the central place of worship and offered
with priestly assistance, and the national offerings described
in Nu1nbers 28££. which were brought on behalf of the whole
people and not of an individual. A failure to distinguish
clearly between these three classes of sacrifices has led the crit.~
ics into endless confusion, and error has arisen from their
inability to under stand legal terms and principles. The Pen-
tateuch is not mere literature, but it contains a legal code.
It is a product of state smanship consisting of three distinct
elements which have always been recognized by lawgivers;
namely, the civil, the moral, and the ceremonial, or what
Wiener calls the jural laws, the mora l code and pro-
cedure. The jural laws are those the infractions of which
can be brought before a court, such as Thou shalt not remove
thy neighbor's landmark. But Thou shalt love thy neigh-
bor as thyself can be enforced only by public sentiment and
Divine sanctions. The Book of Deuteronomy is largely oc-
cupied with the presentation of exhortations and motives ,
aiming to secure obedience to a higher moral code, and · s
in this largely followed by the prophets of the Old Dispensa-
tion and the preachers of the present day. The moral law sup-
plements the civil law. The ceren1onial law consists of di-
rections to the priests for performing the various technical
duties , and were of as little interest to the mass of people
as are the legal and medical books of the present time.
All
these strata of the law were naturally and necessarily in ex -
isten ce at the same time. In putting them as successive strata,
with the ceremonial law last, the critic s have made an egre-
gious and m.is1eading blunder.
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The undamentals
IV. THE POSITIVE EVIDENCE
Before proceeding to give in conclusion a brief summary
of the circumstantial evidence supporting the ordinary belief
in the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch it is import<:1nt o
define the term. By it we do not mean that Moses wrote all
the ·Pentateuch with his own hand, or that there were
no
editorial additions made after his death. Moses was the au
thor of the Pentateuchal Code, as Napoleon was of the code
which goes under his name. Apparently the Book of Genesis
is largely made up from existing documents, of which the
history of the expedition of Amraphel in chapter 14 is a noted
specimen; while the account of Moses death, and a few other
passages are evidently later editorial additions. But these are
not enough to affect the general proposition. The Mosaic
authorsh ip of the Pentateuch is supported by the following,
among other weighty considerations :
1.
The Mosaic era was a literary epoch in the world s
history when such codes were common. t would have been
stra nge if such a leader had not produced a code of laws. The
Tel-el-Amarna tablets and the Code of Hammurabi testify
to the literary habits of the ti1ne.
2. Th e Pentateuch so perfectly reflects the conditions in
Egypt at the period as signed to it that it
is difficult to be
lieve that
it
was a literary product of a later age.
3. Its representation of life in the wilder ness is so perfect
and so many of jts laws are adapted only to that life that
it is incredible that literary men a thousand years later should
have imagined it.
4. The laws them selves bear indubitable marks of adapta
tion to the stage of national development to which they are
ascribed. It was the study of Maine s works on ancient law
that set Mr. Wien er out upon his re -investigation of the sub-
ject. .
5. The little use that is made of the sanctions of a future
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The Mosaic
A rthorsliip
of the Pentciteuch
21
life
is, as Bishop
Warburton ably
argued,
evidence
of
an
e.arly date
and
of a
peculiar Divine
effort
to
guard
the
Israelites against
the
contamination of Egypti ,an id,eas upon
•
the · subject. .
6. The · omis.sion of the lien fro,m the lists of
clean
and
unclean bir ·ds is incre dible if the se lists were made late in
the nation's hi.story after
that
domestic fowl
had
been
intro-
duced from India .
7 As Rev. A. C. Robinson showed in Volume VII of thi
series it is incredible that ther ,e should have been n.o intima-
tion in the P ,entat ,euch .of tl1e existence of
Jerusalem,
or of
the
ttse of music in the litu rgy,
nor
any us e of
the phrase,
''Lor
1
d
of Hosts., unless the compilation had
been completed
before
the time of David .
.8. 1~he subordi nation of tl1e
mir ·aculous elements
in
the
Pentateuch to the critical junctures in the nation's
develop-
m1nt. is
such
as
could be
obtained
only
in
genuin ,e
history.
9. ·The whole repr ~sentation conforms to the true law of
hi storical developn1ent.
Nations
do not rise by virtue of in-
herent resident forces, but through the
s.truggles
1
0·£ great lead-
ers enlightened directly from
·On high
or
by contact
with others .
who have
already
been enlightened.
Tl1e·
def
ender
of
the Mosaic
author ship
of
the Pentateuch
has no occasion to quail in presen ·Ce of the critics who den)'
that authorship
and
discredit its history. He may boldly chal-
lenge tl1eir s,cholarship, deny their conclusions, resent their
arrogance,
and
hold on to his confid ,ence in
the
well authenti-
ca.ted historical evidence
which
sufficed for
those who
first
ac-
cepted it.. Those who
now
at .second hand
are popularizing
in
p
1
erio ·dicals,
Sunday
S
1
chool
l
1
essons, and
vo,lu.mes
of greater or
less pre ·tenti
1
ons the errors of thes .e critics must answer to their
consciences as best they can, but they should be made to feel
that
they
assume a heavy responsibility in putting themselve s
forward
as
leaders
of
the
blind
whe11
hey themselves
are not
able to see.
•
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
CHAPTER 111
THE WISD ,OM OF THIS WORLD
BY REV. A .. W. PITZER, D. D. LL. D.,
SALEM, VIRGINIA
I
''There is, a
g1.
w·ing imp ,r,ession
amo11g em.ine11t private
thinkers
'that
Chri st ianity is losing its
hold
upo
1
n
men,
and
that the Church
is a
waning power; that
the
religious world
is drifting from its moori ngs, and
faith
is becoming a tra-
1dition of the past.
Tl1e above quotation is from an editorial in the
most
por-
ular ne .wspaper published at the Cap .ital of the United State s.
If
the
faith
of
the Churc ·h is
to
stand in
the
wisdo
1
m
0
1
f
men, ,
then
it will be the
sport
of every wind of doctrine, and be
dr·iven hithe :r and thither, according ·to the course of the pop
ular tide~ and
if
the
Church
has
no
better anchor than the
wisdom of this world, then, indeed, will it drift from all its
moorings, a11dbe tos sed continually upon the seas of ceaseless
speculation. But
if faith
is to stand, not in the
wisdom
of
1nen,
but in the power
of
God, in the sure Word
of
Truth that
liveth and abid e·th forever, then , like its Divine Author, it
is and will be the sa.me yesterday, today, and forever . If
faith
be
founded upon the Word
of
Eternal Truth, then the
·Church has
a11 ,anchor sur e
and stedfas t,
enterin ,g
into
th,at
within
the
veil.
One prophecy of Daniel is fulfilled : ''Many shall run to
and fro, and knowledge shall be increased''. The world has
never witnessed a period o,f such incessant and inten se menta .J
activity. Nature , in all her va st domains, in her atoms and
her masses, has been searched with keenest scrutiny, and com
pelled to give
up
her wondrous secrets. Th .e microscope re~
vea]s wor1
1
ds of order and beauty uns .een
by
t'he, 11nassisted
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The Wisdom of this World
3
eye; while the tele scope sweeps the silent skies, and
stars
by the thousands and tens of thousands are discovered, and
numbered~ and catalogued. The electric spark sends t9ought,
in printed words, with lightning speed around the globe. The
microphone magnifies sound until the spider s walk across a
window echoes as the tread of an armed 1nan. The phono
graph receives upon its shining metallic disc the words and
tones of the -living speaker, and is able to reproduce thetn
after
a
thousand years. All tongues, and tribe s, and nations
are brought into daily and direct inte rcourse and fellowship.
Time and space are no longer barriers between men, races, and
empires. Even the Dark Continent, unexplored equatorial
Africa, has been penetrated by the heroic and dauntless Stan
ley
from Zanzibar to Bomma; and the cannibal tribes of the
l Tpper Livingstone are no longer unknown to the civilized
world. And still men run to and fro, restless and dissatis
fied, crying for more light and more kn_owledge.
NO REAL CONFLICT BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENCE
The Christian does not look with dismay upon these re
searche s into Natu re, the se di scoveries of Science; on the con
trary, he hails with joy each new discovery as affording ad
oitional evidence of the wisdom, power, and goodness of God.
Full well does he know that the facts written on the rock
leaves beneath, the star depths above, and the pages of In spira
tion, when properly understood and interpreted, will be found
to be in exact and perfect accord , showing forth the glory
of the Infinite Writer of them all. There is no controversy
between the man of faith and the man of wisdom, provided
each one acts in his proper sphere. There is not, and never
has been, any real conflict between Religion and Science.
There may be conflicts between interpretations of Scripture
and interpretations of the facts of Nature; but what God has
written in His Word never conflicts with
what God
has
written
in His
creation.
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24
The Fundame nt als
The scientific skeptic ism of thi s day ought to remember
how much Science owes to Christian men-to men who be
lieved .in a personal God; who believed in His written Word,
and in His .Son, Je sus Christ, the crucified and risen Re
deemer. What shall be said of the pious Christian, ·Coper
nicus, consecrating his life to God, to Man, to Science ; who
i::ioneered his way into the unknown universe, as the .great
Columbu s of the heaven s? What of Chri stian Galileo, who,
while teaching the facts of Science, also believed the truths of
Scripture? What of the leaders in all departments of human
progress, immortal names familiar as household words - what
of Bacon, and Kepler, and Newton, and Herschel, and Hugh
11iller? Or, later still, what of Chahners, McCosh, Mor se,
Dawson, Southall, Cabell, LeConte, He nry, and hosts of
others who lead the vanguard of the army of investigation
and discovery in all the vast domain of human knowledge?
The man of faith may point to these intellectual giants, and
clai1n them as the humble disciples of the lowly Nazarene
- as firm believers in the written Word of God. They led
the onward march of human thought, but bowed in devout
adoration before a personal God. How dense a darkne ss
would envelop the race were all the light kindled by Christian
men bani shed from the horizon of human knowledge.
T H E SPHERE OF SCI ENCE
But let it be remembered tha t the l Visdom of this World
is for this w orld only- not for the world to come. Its proper
sphere is the seen and tangible; the Her e and the Now, not
the .Un seen, the Her ·eafter, the Eternal. The wisdom of man
has pas sed out of its proper sphere when
it
invades the do
main of the Invisible and the Infinite; when it denies that
the omnipresent personal Spirit can reveal to man that which
the eye never saw, the ear never heard ,. and the heart 'never
conceived. It has passed the boundary of the known, its only
proper sphere, when
it assumes to deny tha t the infinite God
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•
•
•
25
ha .s rev ealed
o,r
can
reveal Himself i11
His W
0
1
1·d, His S011,
I-1.s Spir~t. The tl1ings of God
knoweth
no man,
but
the Spirit
of God. .
We
hav ,e th ·e right
to deman .d of the Wi s.dam.
of
this
World
by
what aut1101·ity
t
asserts tha ·t
there
is nothing
above
a11d apart from
Nature, nothing
in
all the bot1ndless univer se
except matter and
forc ,e-
Why
shall
we ,give up
all th,at ma11
t1olds
dear at ·the bi.dding
of
th ,e Wisdom of this
World
who se
I1igl1est,
an,d
best,
an,d
latest
revelation
is.
''a gr .av,e
witho,ut
a
resurrectio11,
and
a un ive rse
,vitho.ut
a God''
l
THE Fl\ILURE OF EART I-ILY W ISDOM TO FIND · AND I{NOW GOD
The man of fait h does not affirm the
u.selessnes,s
,of eartl1-
ly wisdom, b·ut he does affi,rm that it has, ·utte ·rly failed
t
1
0 fi.nd·
out a11d know the tr ·ue and Jiving God. How
1
ever use·ful and
valuab ·le
the
Wisdom of
tl1is
·worl ,d
may
be
in its
appropr ·iate,
sphere,
it
has never yet
give11
to
men that kn,owledge of
God
tlJ),on
whi ,ch his s,ottl
1
COl1l,d
res t in
satisf
a
1
ctio,n and
peace.
The
World
by Wisdom
l1as nev
1
er
kno
1
wn God. At no time, in no
country,
amo ng
no
people, has. man, by
wisdom ,.
ever b,een
able to make
God
known to his fel'low
men. vVithout th e
Gospel of the . Lo
1
rd
.Jestts
Christ,
·the tr ue
and living God
l1ad ev
1
er
been
tl1e
''Unknown God'' .
•
ANCIENT WISD0?v1 AND TIIE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD
•
The
wi se
men of
tl1is
ge11e1·ationare
not bacl{wa 1d
·in
boastin .g
0
1
f the world,s present progress
and
wisdom, and
yet
the ,
history
and ru ins of the 0
1
ld
world, before the coming
of
0
1
Ut
Lor ,d,
reveal evide ·nces, of
a
civilization that
wi.11
bear
a]] the light and test s of our d.ay.
Egypt, situated on the banks ,of that strange river
whose
so,urc ,e has be.en.
discovered far
off
in
the ev,er-flowing
waters
of the Victoria
Lak e
::>f ,equa torial
Africa,
speaks out
to
this
self -satisfied
genera tio n
in J1er mun1mied
kings,
her
silent
Sphinx, her mat
1
chless
py1an1ids . Egy.pt, tl1at co,uld lif ·t
m,on~
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..
6
The undamentals
ster stones four hundred feet in the air, and adjust them to
a mathematical line and not vary half a hair's breadth; "that
could paint on glass, grind gold to dust, embalm the body
so as to make flesh immortal;" that built gigantic houses of
stone that have outlived all nations and civilizations-this na
tion was wise in all the Wisdon1 of this World. And yet thi s
grand old civilization lived and died in gross and utter ignor
ance of the one true and living God. The religion of the
wisest men of On and Memphis "was Negritian fetishism,
the lowest kind of Nature worship". The people bowed down
and worshipped the Nile, the ox, the tree s, the hills, and
"birds, four-footed beasts, and creeping things". Egypt -had
wise priests, her magnificent temples, her gorgeous wor ship;
but alas all was of the earth , earthy. She knew not God;
and her wise men, J nn~s and J mbres, withstood Moses when
he came to th em with a message from the Living One, in
whom they lived and moved . and had their \being. No won
der that the people were "liar s and thieves, sensual and treach
erous;" with all their wisdom they knew not God.
Sub sequent to Egypt there aro se four great world pow
ers, following each other in succession, claiming and exercis,
ing universal dominion , and gathering unto themselves the
civilization and glory of the known world-Babylon, Persia,
Greece and Rome. Four kingdoms seen in dream by the
great Nebuchadnezzar - the image with the head of gold,
breast of silver, belly of brass, legs of iron, feet partly of iron
and part of clay, and interpreted by Daniel as the four king
doms above named. But alas not one or all of these nations
ever attained unto that knowledge of God which is life 'eternal.
fhe bricks of Babylon, the purple of Tyre, the army of
Xerxes, the conquests of Alexander, the legions of Rome, the
poetry of Home r, the philo sophy of Socrates, the statues of
Phidias, the orations of Cicero, the satires of Juvenal, the
annals of Tacitus-these are the drifts from the waves of that
ancient civilization, wise in all the \Visdom of this World;
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he
Wisdom of
this World
27
these are the drifts still floating ,on the current of human his
tory as it m,oves on it.s majestic cours
1
e to that eternity where
time is not measlur ,e,d
by
days,and night,., and weeks and years ;
and to that infinity where space is not measured by islands,
contine11ts and seas.
There were walls seventy f,eet hi.gh, on which war-ch ,ariots
1night be driven four
abreast; there
were
l1angin,g gardens
filled wit]1 fl
1
owers
and b,irds l;
·there
were
t,emples o,f polished
marble, overlaid with
ivo1y
and
gord;
the·re
we·re statues
so
lif elike as almos ·t to speak ; ·there were
higl1·ways,
firm and
hard, stretching fr ,om imperial Rome to all the ends of the
known world; there
were
arches and aqueducts,
fountain ,s
and
'
ba,ths, p,a:inting a,nd poetry. But,
a1,a.s upon
that civilization
1night have .been wr·itten th,e inscription upon ·the, altar at Mars
Hill, To the
Unknown
God . It was all of
this
world, and
of this wor ld
only;
it was outward,
materia1, transient;
it
was
earth1y, sensual, devilisl1.
Dr .. G.arbett, in his Dogmatic Faith ,
says: With
the
sole ,exception of the knowledge
o,f
the true God, this
old
,vor·ld carried human ,advancement to its
highest
pitch. . F ,or
lt1stre of gen·ius, brilliancy of wit, fertility
0
1
£ imagination,
dept h of
thoug ht,
artistic
ta ste
and
sk·i1I, aesthetic
sensibilities,
and keen relish for plea.sur
1
e, the latest period of
l1eathen
civi
lization
has
n
1
ever yet
been
excelled, perh ,aps
never e,qua1ed
1
'~
An,d
ye,t,.
,i·n the midst
1
of all this,, vice and imm
1
ora,]ity were
.
well-nigh
unive ·1·sal
chastity
was
almost
unl<:nown ;
thousands
,c)f virgins were an11ually
devoted
·t,o
prost ·itut ,ion
in the· tern-
. p les of the gods;
the ]if
e of a man was esteemed of less value
than the life of
a
dog;
sl,av,ery
w,as uni .versa), and
slaves
were put to d,eath for th ,e most trivial causes ; m,en
f
1
oi1g]1t
with
e,ach
othe1· and with
wil,d
beasts in amp
1
hitheatres, where
d,a,inty Roman mat ·r·ons gazed with eager delight 11pon th
1
e
agonies
of dying
men, and
turned
their ·
thumbs
down over
the
polished m,arb1e in token of th ,eir desire for more h1ood.
This old world with all its wisdom knew not God. In its
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28
The
undatnentals
splendid Pantheons there were lords many and gods
m~ny-.,;;;...
g
1
ods of pain .ting and sta ,tuary, ,of poetry and eloquence, of
war and revenge, of drunkenne ss and lust, but no true, holy
and living God. And when the polisl1ed Paul p,reached unto
tl1e wise men of Ath ens Jesus and the resurrection, they
told him that he was a babbler, and a sette r forth of strange
gods .
The m
1
en of this civi1izatio11 worshipped and served ·the
creature more than tl1e C1·eator; and for this cause God gave
them up to
vile
and
unnatural
lusts and
passio
1
ns; they were
filled with unri ghteou s11ess fornication, wickednes ,s,
covet
ousnes s, murder, ,de
1
ceit, ma lignity withottt natural affection
implacable, unmerciful. The unutterable vileness of this god
less wisdom is apparent in the fact tl1at even now
there
ar e
rooms in some of its ·buried and exhumed cities into which
no female is ever allowed to enter.
''An ·d so this ancient society perisl1ed of it s o,N'n inherent
rottenness' Its enormous, all per vading, u11iversal vice sap
1
ped
the foundation of virtue. The mass was c
1
orrupt to its very
core. Its l strength perished by th
1
e mere exhaustion of its
vices.t' Godlessness and vice, irreligion and immorality, went
l1and in l1and, as
the,y
alwaJ'S do, until the people, having
lost all knowledge of God, lost also all shame and virtue;
and
this splendid civilization of this old world perished of its own
hopeless and helpless corruption.
1~11e
ess the peo
1
ple knew
of
God, the viler and m
1
ore
1
debased did they become.
MODERN WISDOM'S FAILURE TO FIND GOD
The wor]d of our day claims to have grown greatly wiser
in the last nineteen
centuries,
but
still
it
knows not God;
nor
,viii it, apart from His Word and
His Son, ever know
Him.
Ring out the
old
battle-cry, the foolishness of God is wiser
than n1en ; this conflict will never cease ; p.erish the craven,
who having undertaken
to
fight
for Jehovah and His
Chris£,
is
appall ed at
t·J1e
w·ar drum
1
s of the
enemy.
Let the godte
1
ss
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The Wt .sdom of this
orld
29
astronomer sweep the skies with his glass, and count and
classify 270,000 stars, and then come and tell us that he
neither saw nor heard of any personal God in all the infinitude
of space; let the scientific smatterer gravely inform intelligent
men that faith in God must now give place to knowledge of
nature and her laws; let the atheistic 1naterialist tell us that
he has searched the boundless universe, and found no intel
ligent Spirit, but only matter and force; let the brazen blas
phemer proclaim that Moses is a liar, Jesus an in1postor, and
man's immortality a delusion; to one and all we say-these
things are ahnost as old as the human race; this godless creed
was held by men wiser than you, long before you were born;
it was held by the wise men of the ancient world in the days of
its highest civilization ; it is held now by the cannibal tribes
of Ureega, Manyema, and Bengala, in the dark places of tfte
earth, filled with the habitations of cruelty; you are simply
asking us to go back to the times when the \ivorld by wisdom
knew not God; and the race has had enough and more than
enough of this godless wisdom; if Chri st the Crucified cannot
save us, then indeed are we doomed and damned forever.
THE DEMAND OF MODERN WISE MEN
The wise men
of
this world, fiiled with philosophy falsely
so-called, ask, first, that we give up the miracles of the Old
Testame nt; then the imprecatory Psalms; then the immoral
parts of the Scriptures; then, the vindictive and bloody laws
of Moses; then Moses himself; then , all the prophets; then,
the miracles of the New Testament; then, the Apocalypse;
then, the doctrine of eternal retribution; then, the Holy Ghost;
then, Inspiration; then, Jesus Christ; then God Himse lf -this
is the modest demand of the unbelieving wisdom of our day
and generation; this substituting knowledge of nature for
faith in God -this is progress ; this is advanced thought
-and so the race is left, its grave without a resurrection ,
its universe without a God,'' it in without a Saviour.
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30
Thoug ·htful me ·n understand well
t·h a.t
the objective
po.iJ1t
of a11
l1es,e
infide l
a·ttacks
is the
Cross and the Crucified. Shall
we
give
up the blood
a11d
its cl,ea nsing
and peace-giving
power ·
at the ·behest of boasting unb
11
eli·ef? Sh .all we cea se to preach
Christ and Him
crucified
because now, as of old, He
i.s
a
stu1nb]ing-blo
1
ck to
the
Jew,
a
fooli shne ss
to the
Greek? Shal l
we no Jonger preach Je sus and the re .surrection bee.ause tl1e·
wise men of
modern
Athens
sc,ornfully
aslc, What do
these .
babblers sav
? The ans,wer
co1nes
to us ,echoed
down
t·he
..
ages; it comes from patriarchs and prophets, from a.postles
and n1artyrs .;, fr ,om. saint .s of
at·1
ages a.nd all lands
who
have
endured all the evils and all the miseri ,es that the m.ilignity
of men and devils could inflict. ·Go as.k them
if
the Gospel
is true, if
it
is
tl1e
power of
Go d
unto salvation,
if
the Crucified
i,s strong to save; and
f ·rom
Roman
amphith
1
eatre·.s a11d
cata
combs, , from the ,dens and caves ,of the earth, from jails an ,d
gibbets, from faggots and
flames
and
furnaces;
from India
and
Gr~enland,
from C hina and Japan, from
C,eylo
1
n and
11adagascar,
from the island s of
the
ocean, from
the
blood
,vashed millions who have
go,ne
up to glory and
to,
God, the.re
shall c.om·e t.his answer: We .know who ·m we have believed.
Christ
,crucified is the wi sdom
of God
and . the power
of God
unto
salvation ·
•
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CHAPTER IV
HOLY S,CRIPTURE
AND
MODERN
NEGATIONS
BY PROFESSOR J
AME rSI
ORR, nilD.J
UNITED FREE CHUR
1
CH
COLLE ,GE,
GLASGOW, SC
1
0TLAND
Is
tl1ere
today in the midst of criticism and unsettlement
a tenable , doctrine of H
1
oly
Scripture for the
Christian Chu1·ch
and for the world; and
if
there is, what is tl1at doctrine? Th
1
at
is unquestionably a very pressing question at the present ti1ne.
Is th
1
ere a book w·hich we can reg .ard as
the
reposit
1
ory of a
true revel .ation
of
God
an1d
a.n infallible gtt·i,de in
tl1e w
1
ay of
life , and as to our d11ti
1
es to God and 1nan ? is a qu
1
estion
1
of
i1nmense
irnportance to us
all.
Fifty
years ago,
perhaps less
t·han that, the question hardly
need
1
ed
to b,e
asked a1nong
Christian people. It was universally conceded, taken for
granted, that there is such ,a book, the book which we call the
Bible.
Here, it
was believed,
is
a volume which is an
inspired
t·ecord of the ,iVholewill of Gord for man s salvation; accept
as true and
inspired
tl1e
te ,aching
of that boot{,
follow
it s
guidance, and you cannot stumble , you cannot err in attain-
•
tng
the supreme
end of
existence,
in
finding salvatio n,, in
gra .sping the
prize
of a
,glorious
immor tality.
Now, a change has come.
The ·re
is no disguising the
fact
that we live in an age when, e,ren within the Church, . tl1ere is
tnuch uneasy
and
distrustful feeling about the Holy Scrip
tures a
hesitancy to
lean upon them a · an authority and to
use them as the weapons of
precision
they
once
were ; ,vith a
COrresponding anx ·iety to find soime surer basis in external
Church authority, or with others, in Christ Himself, or again
in a Christian consciousness, as it is
named, a
surer basi s
for
Christian belief and
life.
We of ten hear in these days .
reference to the substitution, in Protestantism, of an INF AL-
•
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3 2
The Fundatnentals
•
. LIB ,LE BIB,LE FOR AN ·INFALLIBLE
CHURCH'',
a.nd
the implication is that . the one idea is just as baseless as
the
oth
1
er.
S0
metimes
the
idea is taken up,
quite
co1nn1only
per
haps , that the thought of an authority external
to
ourselve s---·
to our own reason
0
1
r conscience or spiritual nature •,srnust 'be
wholly
given up; that
only
that
can be accepted
whic·h
carr ·i,es
its authority within its,elf by the . appeal it makes to, reason or
to our Spiritual being, and tl1er,e,in lies the judge for ,us of what
is true , ,and what
is
fal se .
That
propos ,ition
has an element of
truth
in
it; it may.
be
true
·Or
may be f'alse according as we int erpret it. However,
as
it
is frequently
inte1-preted it
leaves th ,e
Scriptures ·
but
inore than that,
it
leaves Je sus Christ
Hi1nself
Without any
auth 'ority for us .save that
'With
wh,ich
ou r
ow,n rnin
1
ds se,e
fit
to clothe Him . But in r,egard to the I ,NF AL
1
LIBLE
BIBLE
AND THE INFALLI BLE
CH URCH,
it is p.roper to
point
out that there is a considerable diff,erence between these two
things betwe ,en the idea of an authoritative
Scripture
and
the
idea of an
inf allibile
Church or an inf
a1Iible
Pope,,
in the
Roman sense
of
that word. It
may
be a clever ·
antithes ,is
to say that Pro
1
test,a:ntis,111 ub
1
stituted tl1e idea of an infallible ,
Book ,for 'the
older Romis ,h
dog1na of an infallible Church; ,
but the antithesis, the
1
con,t1·ast, un,f
ortu n,ately
ha.s one fatal i11-
accuracy about it. The idea of the at1thority of Scripture is
r °t younger , but older than Romanism. It is not a 1ate in
vention of Pro ,te·stan tism. It is
not something
th ·at
Prote sta11t:-.,
inven ·ted and substitut
1
ed for
tl1e
Ron1an con
1
cep
1
tion ,of tl1.e in
f
al]i,ble
Church; but
it is the 10triginal
conception tliat lies iri
the
Scriptur
e s
thems elves. There is a great difference
tl1ere.
It is a be'lief
this
belief in the
Holy
Scripture which was .
accepted and acted upon by
the
Church
of
Ch,r,is·t from t11e
first. Tl1e
Bible itself claims
to
be
an
autho
1
ritative Book,
and
an
infallible
guide,
to the true kn
1
owledge of
God
and . ~f
the way of
salvation.
This
view is implied
in every
reference'
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Holy S c ripture and M ode,1 n N egatio1i.s 33
, made to i·t, s,o f ar as it then exis .te
1
d, b,y· c ·hrist and His Apos~
ties. That the
N
e,v Testament, the work of
the
Apostles and
of apostoli ,c men,
does not stand
on a
lower
level of inspir ,ation
and
authority th ,an
the Old
Testament,
is,
I thinl<,
hardly
worth arguing. And in that sense, as a
body
of writings of
D
1
ivi·ne
authority, the
books , of the
Old
and
the
New Tresta
tnent wer ,e accep ted
by
the Apostles and by the Church of the
post-ap
1
ostolic ,aget
Take the writings of any
of
the
early
Church
fatbers
I
have waded through them wearily as teacher of Church His
tory take TertuJ1·ian or Ori g·en, or others, and you will find
· tbeir words saturated with references to Scripture. You will
find the Scriptures treated in precisely the same way as they
are used in the Biblical literature of today; name1y, as the
ultimate authority on the matters of which they speak. I
really
do
the
fathers
an
injustice
in
this
c,omp .arison,
for
I
find things said and written about the Holy Scriptures
by
teachers of the Church today which those early fathers would
never h·ave permitted thems
1
elves
to
utter. It
has
now be
come fa,shionable a1nong a
1
class of re1igious teachers to sp
1
eak
disparagingly of or belittle the Holy Scriptures as an author-
.I
1tative rule of f aith for the Church. Th ,e leading cause of this
has
undoubtedly been the trend which the criticism
of
the Holy
Scriptures has assumed during the last half century or more.
By all means, let
criticism have
its rights. Let purely lit
erary questions about the Bible receive full and fair discussion.
Let the
structure
of books be impartially examined. If a
reverent science has
light
to throw on the composition or
authority
or age of these
books, Jet its voice be heard.
If
this thing is of God we cannot overthrow it; if it be of man,
or so far as
it
is
of
man, or
so
far
as
it comes in conflict
. with the reality of things in the
Bib,le,
it will come to naught,-
as in
my
opinion a great deal of it is fast coming today
through
its own excesses. No fright, therefore, need be taken
.at
the mere
word;
1
Criticism.
1
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34
lie F undant entals
•
. On the o her hand we
,are
not boun d to accept ev
1
ery wild
critical
tl1eory that any critic may choose
to put
forward and
assert as
tl1e
final word
o n
this
matter. We
are
entitled
n ay
we
are bound
to look
at the presuppositions on
which each
criticism proceeds
and to ask How
far
is the
criticism con
trolled
by those presuppositions ? We are bound
to look
at
the evidence
by which
the
theo ry
is
supported
an .d
to ask.
Is it really
borne
out
by
that evidence
?
And
when
theories
are
put forward
with
every confidence
as fixed
results
and
we find
them
as we observe
the1n
still in constant process
oi
evolution and
change constantly beeoming
more complicated
more extreme more fanciful we are entitled to
inquire
Is
this the certainty that it was alleged to
be?
Now that is
my
complaint against much of the current criticism of the Bible
-not th
1
at
it
is
criti
1
cism bu.t
that .
it
start .s from
the wrong
basist
that it proceeds
by
arbitrary methods and that
it
ar-
•
rives at results w·hich I think are
demo nstrably
false r
1
es ults.
That is a great
deal to say
no doubt
but perh .aps I shall
have
some justification
to offer
for
it
before
I am don~. ·
I
am
not
going
to enter into
any
general tirade against criti
cism;
but
it is useless to deny that a great deal
of what is
called criticism
is responsible
for the
uncertainty and unset
tlement
of
feeling existing
at
the
present
time
about
the
Holy
Scriptures.
I
do
not
speak
especially of those whose philoso
phical
standpoint compels
them
to
take
up an
attitude
of
negation
to supernatural revelation
or to books
which
pro
fess to conyey such a revelation. Criticism of this kind
criticism that
starts from
th e
basis
of
the
denial ·Of
the super
natural. has of course . to
be reckoned
with.
In
its hands
everything is engineered
from
that
basis. There
is the denial
to begin
with
that God
ever has entered into human history .
in
word and de dt jn any supernat-ural way. The nec e
1
ssary
•
resu1t is that
whatever
in the Bible affirms or flows from sucl1-
interposition
of God
is expounded
or
explained
away. iu
Scripti,res on this showing, instead
of
being the living Of~
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Holy Scriptitre and Modern Negatio,is 35
•
cles of God,
become
simply the
fragmentary ,remains
of
a1i
ancient
Hebrew literature, tlie chief
11alue of
which wo1,l£i
,seem to be
the empl
1
oyment it
affords
to
tlie
critic to dis,sect
it into its various parts, to overthrow tlie tradition 0
1
/ the
past in rega,rd to it,
and
to
fr iame
ever new, ever clhanging I ever
more wonderful tlieories of the origin of the books and Ihle
so,-called legends t'hey contain.
Leaving, l1owever,1
sucl1
fu,tile,
rationalistic critici ,sm ou.t of
,a.ccoltnt
because 'that is
110
t the
kind
of
criticism with which we as Christian people have
chiefly
to deal in our own circles there is certainly an im-
mense
change
of ,attitude
on the part
of man,y
who still
sin-
c~r'ely ho1d faith in the supernatural revel ,ation of God. I
•
find it difficult to describe this tendency, for I am desirous not
to describe it in any way which would do injustice to any
Christian
thinker, and it is attended
by
so many
signs
of an
ambiguous character. Jesus is recognized by the majority
of tho
1
se wl10 represent it as
''the Incarnate
Son of God,
tho,ugh
with shaclings
off
into
m
1
or
1
e
,or less in.definite asser-
tions even ,on that fundamental article, which make it som
1
e-
times doubt£ ul where the writers exactly stand. The prO-
cess of thought jn re,gard to Scriptur
1
e is easily traced. Fir ,st,
there
is
an ostentatious throwing overboard, joined
with
some
expres1.ion of coBtempt, of
wl1at.
:is, cal.l
1
d the V
1
rba.l.
inspir ,a-
tion of Scripture a very much abused term. Jesus ts
still
spoken o.£ as the highest revea .]er, and it is allowed th.a.t His
\vor
1
ds, if only we c,ould get at
tl1e·tn
an
1
d o,n the whole it is
thought we can furnish the highest rule of guidance for
..
time ,and for eter :nity. But eve·n critic .ism, we are to]d, mu,st
have its rights. Even
in the
New Testament the Gospels
go into the crucible, and in the name o.f synoptica1 criticism,
historical criticism, they
are
subject
to
wonderful processes,
•
in the course of which much of the history gets melted out
or is peeled off as Christian characteristics. Jesus, we are re-
tninded, was still a man of His generation, liable to error in .
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36
T lie Fu idatnentals.
•
limitations
in
His con
1
c
1
eptio
1
ns
an,d j
udgm,ent ,s., Paul is al-
leged to be
s,till larg ,ely
d,ominated by his i·nhe :ritance
of Rab
llinical
and Pharisai
1
c ideas.
He had b
1
een
brought
up
,a
Pharis ,,e.,
bro ,ught
up
with the
rabbis,,
an,d
when
he bec.ame
a Chri ,stian, he
carried
a great de,al of
that
into his
Christian
tho
1
ught, and we have
to
strip off
that
thought when we come
to ihe study of his Epistles. He is therefore a teacher not
to be followed further than our own judgment of Christian
truth leads
US.
That
gets rid of·
a
g·reat
deal
that
is incon
venient about Paul s teaching .
•
THE
OLD, TESTAMENT
AND
THE
CRITICS
If these things are done in the green tree of t.he New
Testament.,
it is
easy to
see what
wi]l
be done in
the
dry
tree of the
Old.
The
conclusions
of
the
more adv ,anced
school of critics are here generally accepted as o,~ce
for all
settled, with
t he resultfi~i n
my judgment, at any rate-that
the Old
Testan1ent
is
immeasura .b
1
ly lower ,ed from
the
place
it once h,eld in our r,everence. Its earlier history,
down to
ab
1
out the age o·f ·the king s, is l,arg ,ely res
1
olved i11to n1yths and
legends and fictions ,. It is ruled out of the category of his
tory pro ,p,er. No
doubt w·e are told
that
the,
legends are
,just
as go
1
od as the history, and perhaps a little better, an
1
d tl1at
the ideas which . they conv ,ey to us are just as good, coming
j11
the form o,f 1egends, as
if they
came in the
form
of f act.
But beh ,old, its laws,
wl1en
we
con1e
to deal
witl1
them in
this manner, lack
Divine authority. .
T11eyare
the products
of
•
humari minds at various ages. Its propl1ecies are the
Ut ter-
ances of
men
wh,0
1
posses ,sed
indeed the
Sp,irit
of God, which
is
only· in fuller
degr ,ee
what other g·ood men, religious tea
1
c:h
er ,s in all countries, ha,v,e
posse,ssed-
,not a
spirit
qualifying,
for exampl ,e, to give real predicti
1
ons, or to bear
,a11thoritative
me,ssages of tl1e truth to m,en. And so, in this whirl and c,onfu- -
sio,n ,of theories you will find them in ot-1rmagazin
1
es, you
wilt
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Holy Scrip
1
tUtre a11,dModern N eg ations 37
•
views, you will find th.em
in
many books which have appeared
to annihil ,ate the conservativ
1
e believers
in ~his
whirl and
confusion of theories, is it any wonder that many shou1d be
disquieted and unsettled, and feel as if the ground on which
they
have
been wont to rest
was
giving way
beneath
their feet?
And. so the questi ,on comes back with fres .h urgenc ,y.. What is
to be said of the place and value of Holy Scripture?
•
IS THER .E A TENABLE . [>OCTRINE FOR THE C.HRIS ,TIAN ,CHURCH
OF TOD .t.\Y ?
One of the urgent needs of our time, and a prime need
of the Church, is just a rep ,lacement of
Holy
Scripture, with
due
regard, I
grant, to
any real]y ascertained facts in regard
·to its literary h ist~ry ,, in the faith and live,s of men, as the
truly
inspired and
divine ·ly
se,ale
d record of God s revealed
ill for ruen in great things ,of the sou]. But then, is such a
positi
on tenable? In the fierce light of criticism that beats
upo ,n the documents and upon the revelation of God s grace
they p,·of
1
es·s to contain, can this posi .tion b
1
e maintained? I
\rienture to think, indeed, I am very sure,
.it
can. Let , m
1
e try
to indicate for I ca,n do hardly any more the lines along
which I would
answer
the question, Have we or can we
have a tenable doctrine of Holy Scripture ? .
. Fo,r a
satisfactory doctrine of Holy Scripture and by
that I mean a doctrine which · is satisfactory -for the needs
of th ,e Chris ,tian Church, a
doc;trine
which answers to the
claim the Scripture makes for itself, to the place
it
.holds
in Christian life
and
Christian experience, to the needs of
the
Christian Church for edification
and
evangelization, and
in other ways-µ ,I say, for a satisfactory doctrine of
Holx
Scripture it seems
to
me
that three things are
indispensably
1iecessary. There is
necessary,
first a
more
positive
vie·w
of
the structure of the Bible than at present obtains in many
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The Fundament ·als
,a true su,pern ,atural
re·velati
1
on of
God
in the
his.tor ,y
and re
li
gio1n
of
the B
1
ble.
There
is necessary,
third
the
recognition
1
0£ a t.rue
supe.r·na,tural
inspiration :in the recor ,d O f tha t reve- ,
lation. These three thing s, to
my
mind, go to,gether a more
positive
view of
the structure of the Bible; the recognition
of the
su:pernatu ,ral
r
1
evel.ati·on
embodied
in
the
Bible ,;
a,nd a
re
1
C
ognition in accordance with the Bible s own c1aim
of
a
supernatural inspiration in
the
record
of the
Bible. Can
we
affirm the s,e
thres
th:ings? Will they bear the test?
I
thi·nk
they will ,.
THE STRUCTURE o ·F THE BIBLE
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Holy Scripture and Modern Nega tions 39 ·
the Bible as it stands, I find · and you will find if you look
there a.lso,, without
an.y
particular
1
critic .al learning
you.
will
find
it
what seems
to he evidence
of a very
definite internal
structure, part fitting i~1to part and leading on to part, mak
ing up a unity of
the
whole in that Bible. The Bible has
undenia .b,ly
a structure as
it
stands.
It
is distinguished from
all other books of
tl1e
kind, from all sacred books in the
world, from Koran and Buddhist scriptures and Indian
scr.ip
tu
res and
every other kind of religious books.
It is dis
tinguished just by this fact, that it is the embodiment of a
grreat plan . or S,cheme ,or purp
1
0,se o,f Divine gr·ace ex,tending .
from the beginning of time through successive ages and dis
pensations down to its culmination in Jesus Christ and the
Pentecostal outpourings of the Spirit. The
history
of the
Bible is the
history
of that development of God s redemptive
purpose. The
p·romi.sres
of the
B.ible
mark the
stages of
its
progress and its h,ope.
Tl1e covenants of
the
Bible
stand be-
£ore us in the order of it s unfolding. You begin with Gene-
sis , Genesis
lays the foundation and leads up to the Book
of
Exodus;
and
the
Book of Exodus, with its introduction
of the law-giving, leads up to what follows. Deuteronomy
looks
back upon
the
history of the rebellions and the laws
-
given to the people, and
Jeads,
up to the conquest. I need not
follow the later developments, coming away down through
the monarchy and the prophecy and the rest, but you find it
all gathered up and
fulfilled
in the
New
Testament. The
Bible, as we have it, closes in Gospel and Epist]e and Apoca
lypse, fulfilling all the ideas of the Old
Testament. There
the circle completes itself with the new heaven and the
new
earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. Here is a structure ;
here is the fact; here is a structure, a connected story, a unity
of purpose extending through this Book and binding · all ifs
parts tro.geth,er. · Is that stntcture an illusio,n? Do we o,nly,
and many with us, dream that it is there? Do
our
eyes de-
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40
The undamentals
ceive us wl1en. we thi,nk we .see it? Or has some.body of
a
later
date
invented ·
it, and
put
it all, inwrought
it al],
in the ,se
earlier
recor
1
ds,
Jegends and stories., or
whatever
you
like to
call
it
skilfully woven
into
the st ,ory until it presents there
the
appeara11ce 0£
naturalness and tru ·th? I
would
like to find
the
mind capabl ·e o,f inventing
it,,
a·nd
then
the mind capable of
put ·ting i.t in
a·nd
w·orking
it
in·to, a history once they go,t the
idea it:set.f·. But
if
not inv,ented, it belo,ngs to the
rea.l.ity
land
th ,e, subs,tance of
the history ;
it
belongs
to
the
£,acts ;
and
ther ·ew
fore to the Book that
records
th..
e
facts ,. And there are
internal
attestations in that structure of tl1e Bible to the genuineness
.of its contents tl1at protest against the eff
1
orts
tl1at
are so
often mad
1
e to reduce
it
to fragments and shiver up that
ttnity
and turn
it
upside down. Walk about
Zion • . . te ll
the t·owers
the,reof ;,
mark ye well ·her
bulwarks ; ·
yo
1
u will find
there s sometl1i·ng ther ,e which the art of man wi·11no·t avail
to
overthrow.
1
N ·ow,
that
is .all
very well,
I he.ar .some one say,,
but
ther e are facts on
the
other side .; there are
those
manifold
proo ,f s which o·ur critical friends adduce tl1at the Bib,le is
really a col.Jection of f ra.gments and documents ,of much later
date, and that
the history
is
really quite
a different thing
from
what
the Bible· r,epresents it to be.. Well, are we to sit
dow ·n and
accept
their dictum
on
that s·ubject
with
1
out evi
dence?
When
I
turn
to th ,e. evidence I
do
n,ot find them
to
ha,ve that
1
c,onvincing pow,er which our critical friends ass,ign
to them.
•
. I
am not r,ej ecti11g
this
kin.cl
of
critical
theory
because ,it
goes against my
prejudices
or traditions;
I
reject it simply
because it seems to me the evi,dence does not .sustain it, and
that the
Stronger
evidence is agains ,t
it.
I cannot go into de
tails;
but take j USt
the one
point
that I have
mentioned- zzz his
post-exilian origin o.f the Le Vitical
1aw.
I ha·v
1
e
,stated what
th,ose
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Holy Scrip ture and M
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N
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41
that you
find in the
middle of the
Boo'ks of the Penta teuch -
tho se laws
and institutions about priests and Levites and sac
rifices alld all that had really. no existence, had no authori
tative form, and to a large exten t had not existence of any
kind until after the Jews ret urned from Babylon, and then .
they were given out as a cbde of laws which the Jews ac
cep,ted.
Tha 't
'is
the theory whic 'h
is
stated
once an
1
d
again.
But let the reader put himself in the position o,f that returned
commu nity,
and s
1
ee,
what the
thing
means.
These , exiles
had
retur ,ned from Babylon. They had been
organized
'int
1
0
a
n.ew
community. They had rebuilt their Temp
1
l.e, an ,d
the,n
long
years af .·er th ,at,
wh
1
en things had got into confus ,io
1
n,
thoie
two great m,en, Ezra and N ehemial1, came among
them, And
by and by Ezra produced and publicly proclaimed this law
of Moses- what he called the law of Moses, the law o·f G
1
od
by the hand of Moses which he had brought from Babylon.
A £1111escription of what happened is given i11 the eighth
chapter of the Book of Nehemia h. Ezra reads that law from
.his pulpit of wood day after
day
to the peopfe, and
tl1e
in
terp ,reter ,gives the sen se. Now, mind
you,
most of the things
in this law, in this book that he is reading to the
people, had
•
never been heard of before nev
1
er ha d existed, in fact;
priests
and Levites
sucl1
as
are
there described had never ' exi.st ,ed.
The
law itself was long and
complicated and burdensome,
but
the
marvelous thing is tha t the people meekly accept it all
as . t1~ue ffijeelcly accept it a,s law, at any rate and submit to
it,
and take upon tl1emselves its burdens without a murmur
of dis .sent.
That i,s
a
very rem ,arkable thing
to
s,tart _with. B,ut re
member, , further, what that community was. It was not a
communit ,y with oneness of mind, but
it
V {asa conununity
keenly divided in
itself.
If
you
read the narrative
you will
find tl1at there were strorig opposing factions in
that
com
munity;
there were parties strongly
opposed
to Ezra
anJ
•
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42
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Funda ientals
N ehemia 'h
and
thei .r ref orm ,s ;
there
were
many, as you SCe
in th
1
e Book of Malachi, who were r
1
eligiously faithles ,s in
that community. But marvelous to
say,
they all join 'in ac-
cepting this new and burdensome
and hitherto
unheard of
law as
the law
of Mose .s,
the
} aw coming
down
to them from
hoary antiquity. There were priest .s and Levites in
that
com-
munity who knew something about
tl1eir
own
origin ;
they
had
genealogies
and
knew
something about
their own
past.
Accor·di11g to tl1e new
the ,ory,
thes,e
Levites were
1
q·uite a new
•
order;
they
had
never existed at
all
before ,
the time of
th
1
e
exile,
,a'n,d
they had come
into exi .stence through
the sente .nce
of degradation that the prophet Ezekiel had passed upon them
in the 44th chapter of his boo·k.
History
is quite silen·t
about
this degrada ·tion. If anyone asks who carri
1
ed out
the
deg,ra
1
da-
tion,
or
why was it
carried
out,
or
when was
it donej
and
how
can1e
the
priest .s
to
submi 't
to the degradatio ,n,
there
is
no answer to be
given at all.
But it came about somehow,
so
we are told. '
•
And
so
1
these priests
and
Levites
are there,
and ·they stand
an .d
listen
without a ,stonishment , as.
they
1earn
irom
Ezra
ho,w.
the Levites ha,d been set apart lo,ng centurie .s before in the
,vilderness by the han d of God, and had an ample tithe pro-
vision made £or their support,
and
cities,
and
what no·t, set
a·part £,or , them to live in.
People
know a 1ittle
about
their ·
past. These
ci,ties
never ·had ,exis,ted
except
,on paper ; bu,t
they
took it all in.
They are
told
about
these cities,
which
they must have known had never existed as Levitical cities.
They not only hear but they accept the heavy
tithe
burdens
w·ithout a word of
re·mo
nst ·ran
1
ce·,
and
they
m.ake
,a coven .ant
with God pledging themselves to faithful obedience to a.II those
comman ,ds.
Those tithes l aws,
as w
1
e
discover, had no actual
relation to
their situation
at all.
They
were drawn
up for
a
totally
different case.
They were drawn up
for
a
state
of
things in
which
th .ere were few priests and many Levites.
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restore :d
co,111munity
here we,r,e a gr ,eat many priests and fe,v
Levites . .
The tithe laws
did
not
apply
at
all,
but
they
accept~
these as laws of Moses.
And so I mig ht go ov·er the provis ,ions of the law one by
one tabcrna .cl
1
e and
priest .s
an
1
d
ritual and sacr ,ifices and
Day
of Atonement these things,
i n
their post-exilian
form, had
never existed; they were spun out of · the inventive brains of
scribes; an ,d ye t ·the p
1
eop
1
1e accepted
t hem
all as[ the
genuine
handiwork of the
ancient law-giver. Was
ever
such
a
thing
h~ard
of before?
Try
it in
any city.
Try
to get
the people
tr.• ·t.ake upon themselves a series of heavy burdens of taxa
tion o,r
tithes
or wl1atever
you
like,
on
the
ground that it
had been
handed
down
from the
middle ages
to the
present
time. Try to get th em to believe
it ; try
to get them to
obey
it,
and you will find the difficulty. Is it credible to any-
1one who ]eaves books and th eories , in the stt1dy and
takes
a
bro ad view of
human
nature
with open
eyes? I
aver
that
for
me, at any
rate,
i.t
is,
no·t ; an
1
d it will
b,e
a marvel
to
me as
long as I am spared to live, how such a
theory
has ever
gained the acceptance · it has done among
unquestionably
•
ab.le and sound-minded me,n. I am convinced that th
1
e structure
of the ·B,ibl
1
e
vindica ·tes,
itself,
and
that th.ese
counter
theor ies,
b,reak down.
A SUPERNATURAL REVELATION
•
I think it is an essen .tial element in a
tenable
doctrin
1
e of
Scripture, · in fact the cor·e of the· matter, that
it
contains a
record of a true supe·r·natural revel .ation; and that ·i,s wh,a.t
the Bible
claims to
be not a development of man s
thoughts
about God,
and not what
this man and
that one
came
to
think
about God,
how they
came
to
have the
ideas
of
a
Jehovah
or Ya,hveh, ,;vho wa ,s originally the s·torm-god of Sin.ai, and
how
they
manufactured out of
this
the
great
universal God
of the
prophets but
a supernatural revelation of
what
God
•
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if that claim. t.o a supernatural rev,elat.ion from God falls, tl1e
Bible falls, becau se it is bound up with it from be,ginning to
end. Now, it is just here that a great deal of our mode ·rn
tl1ougl1t p.arts
company
with
the ·Bible. I
a·m qui:te w,ell
aw,are
that
many
of our friends who accept thes
1
e new
1
er critical theo
ries, claim to be jus t as firm believers in Divine revelation as
I
am
myself,
and in Jesus Christ and all that
concerns
Him.
I rejoice in the fact, an.d I. believe that they are warranted
in
saying that
there is
that in the religion of Israel which you
cannot expunge, or explain on any other l1ypothesis but Di- .
vi11e
revelation.
Bu·t wh.at I maintain is, that thi.s theory of ·the religion
of the Bible which has been evolved, w'hich l1as peculiarly
come to
be k·nown
as th ,e critical view, had a very diff ,erent
•
origin in men who did not believe in th
1
e su.pernat ,ural re·ve-
lation of
Go.d in
the B.i.ble. This school as
a wl1ole, as a
wide
sprea d. school, holds the fundamental position ~ the position
,~·hich its adherents call that of the
modern min ,d
t·hat
mira
cl,es ·d:id not
hap
1
pen
and
1
cannot
happen.
It tal-ces l1e
ground
'that they are impo ,ssible ;, there£ ore , its follow,ers have to rule
everything
,of that kind out
of
the Bible record.
. . I ha,ve n-ever been able . to , see
how
that positi
1
on is
tena'b e
to a believer in a livin,g p
1
ersonal
G·od
wh,o really lov,es Hjs ·
creatures and has a sincere des,ire to bless them. Wh
1
0 dare
to v,enture to assert that the po,wer and
\vi1l
of such a Being
· as we must believe God to be · the God and Father of our
Lord
Jesus
Chri.:t is,
exhaust
1
ed in
the
natur la..
c.reation?
That
there are
no higher
things to ~e
attained in God's provi
dence than c·an be attained through the medium of Ratural
law? '
1
That ·t'here is in
such
a B
1
eing
n.o
capability
of revealing ·
Himself jn words and deeds b,eyond nature? If there is a
dogmatism in the world,
it
is that of the man who claims to
limit the Autho ,r of the universe , by this finite bound~ We are
told sometimes
that
it is a far high t
thin~ to see
God
in
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H oily Scripture
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nd Modern Nelgations
45
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natural; a far higher thing to see ,God in the orderlJt regular
working of nature th.a,n to sluppose that ther ·e hlas elver been
anything transcending
that
ordinary natural working.
I
think
we all do
1
see
God,
a11d try t,o
see
Him
more
and more,I in
the ordinary and regular working of nature. I ho,pe all try
every day to see God ·there . But the question i ls, Has this
tiatural working not
its limits,?
Is
tl1ere
not something that
na:t.ure and natural w·orkings can·not reach, can ·not do for men,
that we nee
1
d to have done for us? And are 've so to bind
God that He cannot enter into communion with man
in a
supie,rnatural economy o,f grace, an e,conomy
0
1
f
revelatio
1
n, an
econlomy of salvation? Are we to deny that He has
d
1
one so?
That is really the dividing line both in Old Testament and
New between the different theories. Revelation surely, all
must admit if man is to attain the clear knowle1dge of God
that is needed; and the question is one of fact, Has
1
God so
t·evea]ed· I-Ii·mseI:f? A·nd I believe that it is
a·n
e·ssential
part
of the answer, the true doctrine of Scripture,
to
say,
''Yes,
God has so revealed Himself, and the Bible is the record of
that revelation, and that revelation shines in its light from
the beginning to the
end
0
1
f it. An,d unless. there is la wnole
hearted acceptance of the fact
that
God has entered, in word
and deed,I into human hisltory for man's sa·lvation, for man's
renovation, for the deliveranc le of t.his world, a revelation cul•
minating in the great
Revealer
Himself unless we accept that,
•
Wie do not get the
f
oundatio ,n for th ·e true doctrine
1
of Holy
Sclripture. -
•
THE INSPIRED BOOX.
Now, jus lt. a word in closing·, on Inspiration. I do not
think that anyone will weigh the evidence of the Bible it
self very carefiilly without saying that at least it claims k>
be in a peculiar and especial manner an
inspired
book There
is
hardlY'
anyone,
I
tl1ink,
who
wil1
doubt that Jesus Christ
1
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46
The Fu,idam .entals
an imperfect stage of · rev.ela·tion, no doubt : ·Christ, as, the
·S on
of Man, takes
up a
Ior,dly,
discretionary attitude
tow
w·ar ·ds ·that rev ,elati .on,
a·nd
He
supersedes very rn·uch
what
is in
i.t by some·thin.g
higher, but Ch·rist
recognizes , th .at ·there
was tru ,e Divine revela ·tion there, . that He
was
the goal
o·f
it all ; fie · ,came to
fulfil
the law and the p·roph
1
ets. The
Scr ·iptures
are the
t .
st word with Him
·'Have
y·e
not readf
''Ye do err, not k·n.owing the Scriptures. And
it.
is just
as certai ·n that the Apos.tle.s
t1·eated
tl1e Old Tes ·tam,ent in
that way, and that they cl.aimed in a peculiar S
1
ense the . Spirit
of
God them selves.
Tl1ey cl.aimed that
in them
,and in their ·
wo,rd was laid ''the foundation on which the Church was.
built,'' Jesus Christ Hims ,elf , as the substance of their testi
m,ony,
b
1
e1ng the chief corner-stone; ''b
1
t1ilt
upon the
founda~
tio ·n of
·the
Apostles and P
1
rophets.''
And
if you
say,
''Wel .1,
. ar ·e the se New Test .a.ment Apo
1
stles and P ·rophe 'ts ?'· That is
i·n Ephesians, .2nd
chapt
1
er ·. You go to the fifth ver :se ,
o,f
the ·third
cha pte ·r
and
you
find
this myst
1
ery
of
1
Christ
wh:ich
G
1
od had reveale
1
d to ·1-rs holy
A·postles l
ancl
Prophets by
His
Spirit; and it is 0
1
n that the Church was buil·t. And wh
1
en
you
c.ome
to
T ·imothy ( .2
Tim.
3
:14-17) to
th.at
class.ical
p
1
a.s
sag·e,
you
find
the marks there by
whic.h
inspired Sc.ripture is
dis itinguished.
Take the book of Script .ure and ask ju .st this questi
1
on :
Does it a·n .wer t
1
0 the claim
0
1
f this inspired volum .e? How
are we to test this? I do not enter here int
1
0
the
1
questi .on
that has. div·ided goo·d m·en as to theori .es of insp,iration ques
tion .s about inerrancy in detail, and other
matters.
I want to
g·e:t
a.way
from these .
things at t.he circumference to the
cen.
ter, But take the broader tes.t. ·
. THE BIBLE'S OWN TEST ·OP INSPIRATION
at does t.he Bible .i.tself gi.v,e us as the test of its in-
•
1piration? What does, the Bible itself name as the qualities
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Holy Script (,re and lfodern N ,egations 47
Sacred Writings that were able to make wise 1 nto salvation
through faith which is in Christ Jesus. He goes on to tell
us that
ALL Scripture
is
given by
inspiration of God and
is
Profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for in-
struction in righteousness, in order that the man of God
may
be perfect, throughly furnished unto all
good works~ When
you
go back to the Old Testament and its praise of the Word
of God you will find the qualities of inspiration are just the
same.
The ]aw
of the
Lord is, perfect , etc., Those
are
the qualities which the inspired Book is alleged to sustain-
fJua]ities which only a true inspiration of God s Sp,irit could
give : qualities beyond which we surely do not need anything
lll0
1
re. .
Does anyone doubt that the Bible possesses these qualities?
Look at its structure ; look at its completeness ; look at it
in the
clearness
and
fullness
and
holiness of its teachingS ;
look at it in its sufficiency to guide every soul that tru1y seeks
light unto the saving knowledge of God. Take the Book as
a whole, in its whole
purpose,
its whole spirit, its whole aim
and tendency,
and the whole setting of
it; and
ask, Is
there not
manifest
the
power
which
you ca11only trace ba.ckj
as it
traces
back itself,
to , . s
Holy
Spirit
really
in
the
men
who wrote
t
?i . .
1 ..
•
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•
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CI--IAPTER V
•
SALVATION BY GRACE
Y REV. THOMAS SPURGEON,
•
LOND ,ON, ENGLAND
•
WHAT IS ''G ·RACE''?
•
Once u.pon a tim·e, I me.t,. on b
1
oa.rd an A.ustra]ian liner,
an aged
man
of genial
temperamen ·t,
and
of
sound and
ex
tensive learning. He
man ,aged
to dwell
in ·well-nigh
per
petual sunsl1ine, f o,r he f oll,owed the sun rot1nd the globe year
after
y,ear,
and he was
hims.,lf
so s
1
unny that
t.he
pass,eng
1
ers
made friends with
him,
and sought
information
from
him.
It
fell out that a discussion ha.ving arisen as to what ''Grace''
was, someone said, ''Le .t us ask 'The Walking Encyc lopcedia';
li
will be sure to know.'' So to him they went with their
.inquiry as to the meaning of the theo1ogica1 te .rm, ''Grace.''
They retu .rned woef u11y disappointed, for all he could say
w·as, ''I confes ,s that I do,n't ·unders ·tand it .. At th
1
e same time
·he volt1nteer
1
ed the following ,extrao ,rdinary statement: ''I
don't
think that
they understand
it either who
so
often
speak
of
it.
1
~
Like , the medical man of
who1n
the Rev. T .. Phillips told in
hi.s
Baptist World Congress sermon who sai,d of Grace, ''It i,s
utterly
meaningless to me, this well-read traveller compre
hend1d.
it
not. Some
among us. were
hard]y
as
1
tonished
at
this ,
but it
1
did occur
to
us
that
he might have allowe ,d
that
it
was
j11stpossible t'hat on this particular t'heme, at all event .s, some,
l
1
ess. learned
f
ol.k might be more enlightened than himself.
Now~
it
chanced tl1at on
th ,a.t.
same vess ,el there w,as a Christi ,an
seaman,
wh
1
0,
if h
1
e cottld not have gi,v
1
en a concise and ade
quate definition o,f· ''Grace,'' nevertheless knew pe,r·fect1y well
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49
with hounding heart and beaming face, if one had suggested
that ''Grace is
God's
f ree, unmerited
favor, graciously
be
st~1owed upon
the
unwortl 1y
and sinful.' · And if Mr. Phi llips
himself had been on board, an.cl had preached his Co11gress ser
mon the ,re, and had declared that ''G race is something in Gold
which is at
the
heart of all His redeeming activities, . the down
v,ard stoop and reach
of
God, God
bending from the
heights
of His majesty, to touch and grasp our insignificance and
pover ·t,y,' ''
the
weath ,er-beaten
face woul
1
d have beamed
,again,
and the converted sailor .... an would have
,said
within himself,
''Oh, to Grace how great a debtor, daily I'm constrained to be.
Ve·rily,
th ,e
world
thro ,ugh its wis,do1n ]<nows no
1
t
1
God. The
true meaning of
''Grace''
is hidden
from
the wise and pnt
dent, and is revealed to babes. ''Cottage
dames''
are often
wiser as to
the
deep things of God than savants and
scientists.
Our
learned traveller dwelt
in
perpett1al sunshine,
but
he
was
110 ,t able f'r·om experience to say, ''God hath sl1ined in our
hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God,
in the face of Jesus Christ.'' .
Dr.. Dale, Jong
years ago,
lam·en,ted
that
the
word ''
1
Grace''
was becoming disu .sed. It has, alas I been
use ,d
a great deal
less
since
·then. His own
defii1ition
of
''Grace'' is
wortl1
re
memberit1g: ''Grace is
love which passes beyond all claims
to love. It is love which after fulfilling the obligations im
posed by law, bas an unexhausted wealth of kindness.'' And
h.iere is Dr .. Maclar ,en's: '·Grace wh,at is that?
The word
means,
first,
Jove in
exerci se to, those who
are
be1ow the lover,
or who deserve
sometl1ing
else; stooping love that
conde
scends, . and patient love that forgives .
Then
it means the
gifts which such love bestows ; and 'then
it
means the effect
of these
gifts in the beauties
of
character
and
conduct
devel
loped in
the
,rec,eiver .s.''
[ r.
Jowett
puts
the matter strikingly: ''Grace
is
energy.
Grace is love-energy.
Grace
is a redeeming love-energy min
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,
so
The
Fundam entals
· own loveliness.'' Shall we hear Dr. Alexande~ Whyte her~
'ttpon? ''Grace means favor ,, mercy, pard ,on. Gr ,ac
1
e and love
are essentiall ,y the same, o,nly Grace is
love manifesting
itself
arid operating under
certain
conditions, and a,dapting
it,seif
to
certain circumstances. As, for instance ,, love ha ,s no l'imit or
Jaw such as Grace has. Love may exist between ,equals, or
i,t ,
ma,y rise to t'hose above 'US, or flow do·wn to tho ise in an,y
way beneath us. But Grace, from its nature, has only one
directio ,n
i,t
can take. GRACE ALWAYS FLOWS DOWN.
Grace is love indeed, hut it is love to creatures , humbling itself.
A king's love to his e,quals,
0
1
r to his own royal house, is love;
but his love to
h,is
st1bjects 'is.called grace ,. And thus ,
it
is
that
God's
1ove
to sinners is always called GRACE in t'he Scrip
tur 1s:.
It
is
.1ov,e
indeed,
but
it
is
),1ve
t O creatures ,and t
1
creatures who do not deserve His
Jove.
And therefore all He
does for ,
11s
in
CJ1rist,
and
all that
j.s disclos ,ed to us of His
goo,dwill i11 the Gospel, is ca,lled Grace.''
•
IS ''GRACE'' DEFINABLE?
•
•
Delightful as these
defin itions
are, we
are conscious that
the ha.If has not b,ee,n told. Oh I the e,xceeding ric'hes of His
gra
1
ce. Wher ,eunto shall we liken the mercy of God, or with
,vhat comparison shall
\ve compar ,e
it?
It defies
definition,
and beggars descriptio ,n. This is ha1·dly to, be wondered at,
f
on it is so Divine. There are som -e things of earth to which
no human pen or brush has
1
done j 'Usti
1
ce st
1
orms, rainbows,
cataracts ,, sunsets, i,cehergs, snowflakes, dewdrops, the wings
that
wanto 'n
among ,
SUmmer
flower ,s. Becaus ,e God made the(llt
man
fails
to describe
them ,.
Who,
then,,.
shall te,ll forth fully
that whjch God has and is? The definition we have quoted
from Dr:. Jowett is worthy of .his gr,eat reputati .1n, yet he
himself confesses that ''Grace'' is indefinable. Thus
choicely
t1e puts
it:
''~ome tnin .ister of the C'ross; toiling in great
.
lon,eline,s,s,, amo
1
ng a sca.,ttered and primitive people, and on the
very fringe of dark primeval forests, , sent
me
a
tittle
sample
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Salvation
by
race
51
of his vast and wealthy environment. It was a bright and
gaily colored wing of a native bird. The color and life of
trackless leagues sampled within the confines of an envelope
And when we have made a compact little phrase to enshrine
the secret of Grace, I feel that however fair and radiant it
rnay be, we have only got a wing of a native bird, and be
wildering stretches of wealth are untouched and unrevealed.
No we cannot define it."
DESIRE FOR SALVATION
It cannot be pretended that all men desire to ·be saved.
Would to God that it were so A lack of the sense of sin
is still the most perilous omen of today, as Mr. Gladstone
declared it was in his time. Were he now alive, he would, we
believe, repeat those portentous words with added emphasis,
for this lack- this fatal lack---is approved and fostered
y
certain of those whose solemn endeavor it should be to pre
vent and condemn it. A fatal lack it assuredly is, for if ,a
sense of sin .be absent, what hope is there of a longing for
salvation, of a cry for mercy, or of appreciation of a Saviour?
So long as men imagine themselves to ·be potential Christs,
there is little likelihood that they will be sufficiently discon
tent with self to look away to Jesus, or, indeed, to suppose
that they are other than rich and increased in goods and in
need of nothing. No, no; all men ·do not desiderate salvation,
though we sometimes think that there has come to all men at
some time or other, before the process of hardening was com
plete, some consci.ence of sin, some apprehension as to the
future, some longings, faint and fitful it may be, to be right ·
with God, and assured of heaven. There is, moreover, a
tnuch larger number than we suppose of really ,anxious souls.
Deep desire is often hidden under a cloak of unconcern, and
there is sometimes a br,eaking heart under a , brazen .breast.
In addition to, and partly' in consequence of, this lao'k of a
sense of sin, there is much misconception as to the nature of
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•
•
•
•
•
•
.,.
•
The
Fundanie itals
salvation, and tl1e way to secure it. It is even possible to en
tertain some true conception of sin, and of
salvation ., without
c.omprel1ending, or, at
all events, with .out
su.bmitt .ing to Go,d s
method of salvatio
1
n. One may r
1
eali.ze that to be sav,ed f r,om
sin
is
to
o,vercome its po
1
wer a.s w
1
ell as
to
es.c.ape its
penalty,
and yet suppo ,se that this is not impossible to f alien men by
way of profound penitence,
radic ·al ref ·ormation,
and
precis1
piety. .
Rl
1
GHTEOUSNE .SS IS ESSENTIAL
One thing is eviden ·t rig.hteo11sness
i,s
essential. B
1
ut
what ·must be. the : nature and q·uality of ·that righteousne ,ss~
and how and
w
h
1
ence is it to be obtained ? Shall it be
home
r11ade,or shall it
be
of ·
God and fr ·om above?
Shall
I
go
about t,o est .ablish my own, or shall I subj1ect myself to God s?
Shall salvation be of
wor.ks,,
or
by
f aith? Is Christ · to
be
a
Substitttte fo
1
r the sinner, or will tl1e sinner be a
s,t1b
stitute
for
the Savi
1
our? Shall
the altar sme,11
of
,sacrific.e,
Go,d
appointed ,and God-pr ·ovided ., 0
1
·r ·will we prefer to d
1
eck it. with
flowers that with
1
er an ·d wi·th fruits that sl1rivel, howsoever fair
t hey seem at
first?
Is pe·rsonal goodness, or
·s God s gr ·ace,
as revealed
in Jesus
Christ,
to
bring us
to the
world
where all
is well ? The one is a ladder that we ourselves set up and
pa .infully ascend; the. othe~ is an elev.a,tor which. God provides,
into which, ind .eed, we pass by penit .ential . faith,
but
with which
the liftin .g ·po
1
wer is, God s alo
1
ne. Salvati
1
on by work ·s is t·he
choice of
the
Pharisee, salvation
by Grace
is
the
hope
of tfie
Publican. . ,
•
•
Nor ca.n
these
two
p,rinciples
be
combin .ed. They · are t ~
tally distinct; nay, more, they are at variance the one with
th
1
e
other. ·A blend of the
·two is
impo,ssible. If ,it is
by
grace,
it
is no more
,of works ;
other ·wise grace
is no more
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•
Salvation by
1
race
SJ
•
sown with mingl ,ed s,eed. The ox of mercy, and th
1
e, ass of
.tnerit
n1us t not be yoked
tog
1
ether; indeed, they cannot be;
tl1ey are t
1
00
unequal.
No
linsey -woolsey garment
can 'We
weave of works
and grace.
As Hart quaintly puts it:
Everything we do we
,
Cho,se11 Jew,s
Must not use
.
,,
sin in,
S0
the
choice must be
n1ade
between
these
two
wa,ys to
heaven. ·The great ques ,tion still is,
How
can · m.an be
just .
wit .h God? and
it
app
1
ear .s that he tnust
1
either him.self be es
sentially and perfectly ho,Iy, ,or he must, by some
m·eans,
ac
quire a justnes .s which will bear the scrutiny of Omnis ,cience,
and p
1
ass
muster
in th ,e
High Court of Heaven .
•
I
•
W H AT SAYS THE BOOK?
,
What , has the Word of God to
say
about this all-import
ant matter? It declares most plainly that all hav
1
e sinned, that
sin is
exceedi ·ng
sinful, that retribution follows iniq~ity as the
cart-wheel follows the footprints .
of
the ox
that
draws
it,
tltat
none
can
ma·ke his
hands clean or
r,enew his
own heart. It
tells us also that
God,
in His infinite mercy, has d·evised
a
way of s,alvation, and that none b~t Jesus can do helpless sin-
. ners good. Behold the
bleeding
victims, and
th.e smoking aita .rs
lof the ol
1
1
dispensati 1on Th
1
y ,speak of sin thiat neede
1
d to
be pu·t.away, and they fo
1
reshadowe :d a sacrifice of nobler ·n,ame
and richer
blood than the,y, th
1
e
only
Sacrifice
·whicl1
can ·mak
1
e
the comers th,ereunto perfe ,ct.
Hea ·rk,en
to, David as he cries: ,
Enter n,ot into ju ,dgm
1
en·t with Thy servant, for in Thy sight
-
shall no fles·h living
be ju s·tified. ·
The
prophets te11 t he
sel·fsame ta1e. By
the
knowledge
of
Him
shall
My righteous
Servant justify many, for He shall
· bear
their
iniquities (Isa.
53.:11 ).
Then there is that won
derful word . whic h broke the fetters that were on Luther s
I
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54
The Fundamentals
I
soul as h
1
e climbed the h.oly S
1
taircase on. his knees: ''"fl1e
j iust
shall live by faith.''
The Apostles bear similar
witness. Peter
tells
of Jesus
of Naza .reth, and declares, ''In none other is there salvat :i.on;
£or
neither
is ther ·e
any
other na·me
under
·heaven,
tha ·t
is given
among men, wherein
we
mu st be saved'' (Acts 4 :12,
R.
v.).
Paul is insistent on
justification
b.Y faith
alone. ''By the
•
d.eeds of the law th .ere s,ha ll no
flesh
be ,justi .fied in
His sight ''
(Rom. 3 :20),. ''By gra
1
ce ye are saved through
faith;
and
that
not of yourselves;
i·t
is
the ,
gift
of
God; not of workst lest a ny
man should boast'' (Eph. 2 :8 and 9). ''Not
by
works of
righteou sn-es,s
which we have do11e, but according to His mercy
H'e, sav ,ed
us,
b
1
y the washing of r
1
egeneration,
and r·e·newing
ol
thf Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundant ·ty throug r1
Jesus Chris ,t our Saviour; that being justified b
1
y
His grace,
'We
sh
1
ould be
ma
1
de h
1
eirs according
t
1
0
the ho
1
pe of
eternal
·tife''
(Ti ,tus 3:5; ,
1
6, 7).
(See .also
Gal . .
3:11,
Ph .ii.
3:8
1
and
9, Acts 13 :39,
a11d
2 Tim. 1 :9.) ·
NO THOROUGHF 'ARE
.
What nee,d ha·ve we 0
1
£. further w:tness,·? It is evjden ,t tha·t
the way of Works is close·d .. Athwart the narrow track have
fallen · the Tree of Life and the broken
t.ables
of
the
Law,
and God ha s affixed
a n,otice
there ,, large
and
legible ,,
so, that
he w·ho reads may ru.n into a
better
p
1
ath
N
1
0 TH
1
0R
1
0U
I
i -- -
FARE It ·is given '' .By Order,'' and the King's re ·d seal is
011 it.; there£ ore doth
it
stand fast for
e·ver.
Levitical instruc
tions,
Davidi ,c
confessions, Prophetic and Apostolic
declara ,
·tions are .
all
the
vo,ice
o,f
the Lo
1
rd the voice that
breaketh
•
the cedars of
Leban ,on
and strippeth
the
forests bare declar~
ing
that salvation is
by
G1 acealone ..
r
'
THE
'VERDICT
OF HISTORY
1
• I
, .
.
The history of man is the history of
si·n.
lt is. one long,
•
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Sal'vation by Grace
55
it) of all.
The
law was fragmentary
a11d rud ·im
ental then.
Tl1ere was but one command a
solitary
test. B.ut it was one
t.oo
ma:n y
for
ou.· first
par ,ents~ Later,
the
fl1ood-sw1
p,t world
was soon defiled again. Lat -er still, there came a law to
Israel, holy an
1
d j ·u.st and good. Did t]1ey obey? Let the
carcasses tl1at strew tl1e wilderness
bear
witness. Is
ther ,e
a
~lerfect
life
in all Tin1e's annals? Th ,e Pharisees were p1~
e111inentas professional religionists,
y,et
Jesus said, '''Except
Your righteo ,usnes,s shall
exceed
the
righteousnes
1
s of the scribes
and Ph .a.r.i.se,es,
ye
shall in no wis,e· enter int ,o the king
1
dom o·f
heaven. They, as it were, traveled in an express train, and,
of course, fi.rst -class, but
i.t
was t·,ie ·iuron,g ,train Saul of
Tarsus
was a Pharisee of
the Pharise
1
es, and he
was
n
1
0
hypo
crite, mind
Y·OU,
bu.t he, too, was on the wron .g track, till he
c·hanged trains at Dam,asctts
J 111ction.
Ther ,e, he re1in.quished
a)] con.fidence in tl1e flesh, and thenceforth exclaimed:
''What
things wer ·e gain to, me, these have I
,count.ed
loss for
1
Christ~
Yea, verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excel
lency ,of t·he knowledge o,f· Chri st _Jesus. my Lord, for whom
I suffered the loss of ·all things,
a11d
do coun ·t them b·ut dung
that I may ,vin Christ, and be found in Him, not having mine
OWn
righteousne ss which
is of
th
1
e
law, but that whi
1
c'h
is ·
througl1 faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of
God
by
fa-tl1.'
•
•
I
GRACE, NOT GRACES
Personal experience bears similar testimony. ·Our own
g~aces can ne·ver s.atisf y as does God's
Gra.ce.
He who is not
flar f'rom the kingdom, nevertl1eless inquir
1
es, ''What lac·k I
yet
r
One might as well think to lift himself by hauling at
his hoots, as, expect to win heav,en
by
tl1e deeds of the law.
The fact is, that fallen human nature is incapable of perfectly
keeping
the perfect law
of
God. It isl we11
when this
is
un- ·
derstood
a11d humbly lacknowledg ,ed ;,
it may be the dawn of
better things, even as it was with one of· whom I have heard •
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56 The Fundamentals
•
•
\vho was br ,ought to Christ
by
the S,pirit's application of 'the
wordst ''The heart is dec
1
eitful above all things, and desperately
v;icl<ed.'' Who
,can
b
1
ring
a clean thing o,ut of
an
unclean?
G,ulliver
te,11s
of a
man. who had
been eight year ·s ,upon a
· pr
1
oc·ess of extractin .g suobe .ams out of cucu,mbers. . The ,sun
bea1ns w,ere to be put in phials hermetically s
1
ealed, and let out
to warm the air in inclement we~ther. This was folly ind
1
eed,
but it is ,ev·en more ridiculous to think ,of extracting 1·igl1teous
f 1s.s fr ·om .a
depraved l1ea·rt.
''They
that are
in
the
flesh
can-
11ot
please God.'' That
,vas
good advice
given to a
seeker:
''You'll never know p,eace till you give up looking at self, and
let all .Your g·race:s go for notl1ing." The blac.k devil of un- ·
righteou :sn.ess. :has slain
i'tS
tl10,usa·nds, but the wl1ite ,devil
1
0£
self-rigl1teousness hatl1 slain its tens of thousands.
Salvation
is by Grace, not by
graces. Sound
aloud
this
truth, .for
it is
glao ti
1
dings ,,
f
1
or all save Pharisees ,
Tl1ey, indeed,,
prefer an-
. '
·Other Gos.pe1, whi,ch is not another, an,d ,a mode1~11·ne wl·1icl1
is as old as Cain's offering. Their watchword is, ''Believe in
yours ,elf," but for those who have seen themselves as God sees
th ,em, for such as can . b
1
no
1
means lift up thems1lves, who ar ·e
shlut up ut1,der
s.in,
an.d
1
Cot1dem11e.d
al re,ady ,, oh f f
1
or thes,e, th·is,
i~
s·ummer
new s, in truth. If salvation i.s
by
Grace, the
grace~
less may be saved, prodigals may venture home, the vilest may
b1
cleans .ed. Ah yes, and there
is a
siense
in
which the guiltier,
the better. . Then is th.ere· l
1
ess fear of tl1e intru .sion of ot .her
trust, and tl1e glory gotten to God's Grace is greater. I do per
ceive that if salvation be by works, then can none be saved.
Equa11y sure am I that if sa1vation be by Grace, none need be
l
1.1s, for
it
is
o·m~i.potent,
a.nd
.greatly
re:.oi·ceth .
to·
be
teste
1
d to
the full. I read this sentenc
1
e in la riveter's s'hop-window
. the
other
day: ''No article can
be
broken beyond repair the
more
it
is·
.smashed
the
better
we li.ke
it,
and I said witl1in
'
myself: ''Thus
it
i.s with th.e Grace of God, and long· as I
· li¥e I wi·11 ell poor sinners so ..'
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Salva ltion by
Grace
7
As for the prQud Pharisee, ''God grant h.im grace to groan.'~
•
WHAT SAITH THE CROSS?
•
Grace and atonement go hand in hand r Dr. Adolph Saphir ·,
has well said: ''The world does not know what grace is. Grace
•
is not pity; grace is not indulgence nor leniency; grace is not
long-suffering. · Grace is as infinite an attribute of '
1
God as is
.Eis power, and as is His wis.dom.
1
Grace manifests itself in
righteoustless, Grace has a righteousness which is based upon
•
atone .ment or
substitution,
land
through the
whole
1
Scriptµre
there run the golden thread of grace and tl1e scarlet thread
of
ato
1
ne·me11t, wl1icl1
t
1
ogether reveal to us, for man, a
rig ·hteous-
•
ness
that comes
dow11 from heaven.'' The fact
that Christ
has died, a Sacrifice for sin, surely settles the question as to
whether salvation is
or
is
not b,y
Grace. ''If righteousness is
througl1 the law, then Christ died for nought." Yon great
Sacrifice were worse than waste, if
man can save himself.
They
who think to be saved through works of the flesh make
voi
1
d the gr ·ace of God. The unspe ,akable gift had never been
donated ; the substitutionary sacrifice had never been o:ff red,
had
any
other
way
been possible.
Calvary
says, more plainly
than anytl1ing else, ''Salvation is of the Lord.'' Away, ye
•
tnerit-mongers from the Cross, where ''the sword of Justice
i..:scabbarded in the jeweled sheath of Grace.'' Penances,
and
pieties, 3ind p,erformances
are
less
than vanity
in view
of
the
''unknown sufferings'' of the spotless Lamb of God. It is
•
impossible for self-righteousness to thrive on the slopes of the
hill cal.led Calvary.
.
''Oh bring no price;
God s
grace
Te Paul, to
Magdale11e,
to
me '
1
'
•
ALL OF GRACE
...
.
is free
•
•
Salvation, the~, is necess~rily a.11of
1
Grace. Man's . fall is
-.
.
so complete, God's justic
1
e is so
inexora·ble,
heaven is so
holy,
•
•
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S8
The Fundamental'
that nothing short
of Omni·potent lov,e
can
·tift
the sinner, mag
nify
the law
which he has
mutilated~ ancl make
him pure
enough to dwell in Lig 'ht. Tl1e thought of s,aving si,nners is
God's, born, in the secret places of His
great loving '
·heart.
' 'Grace first contrived
the way
to
s.ave
r
1
ebellio,us man.w''
The
accomplishment
of
the wondrous plan
reveals God's
Grace
tliroughollt.
He sent His
Son to
be tl1e Saviour o.f
the World.
He
freely delivered Him up
for
us all. He acknow]edged Him
in
Hi ·s
11u1niliation
as,
Hi ,s
beloved
Son,
but
fors ,ook
Him
on
the t.ree, 'because He was made sin f
o,r us.
Moreover, He
brought ·.
again -· f'rom
rthe
dead our Lord Jesus,
that ·
great
•
Shepl1erd of
the
s11eep,
and
enthroned Him at the right
hand
Qf the Majesty on high. There followed the shedding
forth
of the S,pir it to
convict the world
of
sin,
and
of
r.igh,t,eou,sness,
_and
of
ju ,dgment .
He re is grace at
every
turn.
f
, ''THROUGH FAITI1:''
•
-
,
· A Work
of G1~ace, oo, has been
eff
ec·ted
in
each believing
~heart.. · We
are .
not
saved merely becaus ,e Cl1rist
died.
Tl1e
good news would be to us as rain
upon Sah.ara,
did not
Grace
i11cli.ne
to penitence and
pra}rer
and faith. ·
•
•
...
•'Grace ta .ugh.t my soul to pray,
And made my eyes o'e ,rfiow.''
..
Salvation by
grac e
is
appropriated
by
faith : ·
Grace is the
fountain, but faith is the
channel.
,Grace is the life -line, but
faith is
tlie ·hand
tha t
,clutcl1es it. And, thoroughly
and
final.ly
t.o
exclude all
boasting,
it is
declared
tl1at
the
salvation and ·
the faith
are
botl;i the gift of God. '' And
t.hat not
of your-
selves,
it
is the
gift of
God. T'hat salvation is
Go,d's
gif ·t is
e,vident. ''Tl1e gift 0 1 God is
eternal
life through ,Christ~'' '
''The free gift,'' ''The gift of grace,''
''The
gift of righteous
ness''
these
phrases det ,errri'ine
the f'act tha 't
s.a]·vation is
itself ·
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59
jn the great co11gregation, '' ·is every thing f or not hing J Christ
f·ree
·
Pa rdon free
Heaven free '' Thanks
be
·to ,
God for
a gratuitous salvation I
But is faith, also, the gift o.f God ?
As,,ur ,edly it is, ii
enly
because it is one of the most precious faculties of the human
h
1
eart. What have
,ve
that we have not ~eceived ?
But
f
1
aitb
in
Christ is, in
a very special sense, a Divine gift.
''Not
that
something
is given
us
which is
different
from
abs ,olute trust
as exercised · in.
other
cases , but that such trust
is
divinely
guided
and
fixed
upon
the right object.
Gracious manifesta- · .
tio .ns
of
t·he soul's ne·ed,
a11d
of
tl1e
Lord's glory , prevail upon
the will to repose tru st upon . that
1objec.t.''
To trust is natura,Jt
but to trust Christ, rather · than self,
O·r
ceremonies,
is
sup er
natural it is ·the gift of God , More ,over , faith, to be worthy
-
o ·f 'the name, must not he
1
dry-ey .ed, and wh ,o can melt tb
1
e
heart
and turn the flint into ,a fountain of water s b11t the God of al)
G
i)
1race.
•
''The Grace · that made me feel
my
sin,
1·t
·taught me
to believe;
•
•
Then, in believin g, peace I f·ound,
•
And now I live,
I Jive.,"
•
•
l
Nor is
it to be
supposed tha .t
Grace
has
1
done with 11s ~as
soon as we have believ ·e·d. The · mighty call of Grac
1
e that rie-
sults in ou ·r awake ,ning , is bttt ·the
begin~ing
of good
things .
•
Grace k,eeps us to the
end . .
It will no.t
Jet.
us g
1
0 ·.. t is
the
..
n1orning and the · evening Star of Christ ·ian
exp,erienc~
It
puts
•
us in the
way,
helps us by the ,vay, and takes us qll the way,;
•
..
''LEST
ANY MAN .SHOU{J) BOAST'; . •
•
..
It is di·ffic,ult to imagine by what ot.h,er pro ,cess salvati .on
co,uld have been secur ,ed, consistently ,vith God's honor. Sup
i,ose, fo,r a moment, that salvation
·by
works were a possibJo
a]ternat .ive. Boasting, so fa:r f
r,om
being ex·eluded, ~oufti
Ile
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60
Tlie Fundamentals
beof hislpur ,pose,,
and hopes. On such
a
task
as this, he
w,ould
embark with bands playing and
C
1
0l
1
ors flying~ Th
1
ere
would
be credit and eclat from the first. A]as
1
vain
ma,n;
this can
only end disastrously. Thou art building o,n the sand. This
is not of
1
God, and ,must th ,erefo ,re
1
come to naught. The Divine
Spirit hum b]es m,en to conviction and ,deep
1
repentance ; H
1
e.
never prompts to self '-righteousness and p,ride; as Hart's
simp'le, stanza
bas it : · . ·
'' 'He never moves a man to say,
·Thank God, 'I
am so,
good,'
But
turns
his eye another way
To , Jesus and
His
bilood.''
•
He would bo,as
1
t in progress. How his meanest achieveme ,nt
would e,J,ate him? What crowing there would be over tl1e
slightest advance
TI1ere
would be no need for indebtedness
to G,od,. The ne,w birth, the , cleansing bl,ood,, the conve ,rting
Spirit w·hat call for thes ,e? The self ,-made man, they say,
v1orships
'his creator, and t'he self-rigl1teous
,man a.dores
his
saviour,
that
is to
s,ay, himse.lf.,
While the
Pharisee
is brag
ging of what he doe s the publican mourns over wh ,at he
is.
Because his
l1eart
smites ·him, he smites his heart; he cannot
look up
1
, for he has
looked
within,
but 'be,cause he
cries f
1
or
niercy he is justified.
This
is as God wou]d have it, for
He
hath S1id: ''My glo,ry will I not . give u.nto an,other.''
He would boast
w .lien
perfect. If real peace an ,d lasti ,ng
joy
could
come to him, he w
1
ould 'boast
ane,w·.
''I have made
my
heart
cleanj,
and washed my
hands
in innocency,"
'he
w.ould
cry.
The ,re would
be
n
1
0
room
for
God, and for His
sovereign
cla ,im to th ,e wh
1
ole, praise of
0
1
Ur salvati
1
on. Ins ,tead of the
sweet ~iming ' of the bells of St~ Saviou ,r's,
''I forgave
thee I
-
f'orgave thee I forgave thee all t'hat debt,'' we s'hould be
d,eafened with the ho~rse brass of every man's own trumpet .
blaring
about the good
some
wi,Jl even dare to
say,,
the God
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SaJvatio1iby Grace
61
I know which
music
I
p1·efer.
t.o that pardoning word, like
h
1
ells
soul has scor ned a]l other .strains.
,
bells .
Since first I hearkened
at ·ev
1
ening pealing,
my
Ring on,
ring on.,
sweet
•
Again .,
he
would
boast in Paradise.
Think of
it Heaven
as it is,. is. full . of perfect prais .e to
1
God. Its every song
is in hono ,r of F .ather, , .Son, or Spirit. ''Unto Him that loved
us and w.ashed us, from ,our sins in His own blood, and hath
n1ade u.s
kings and
prie ,sts unto
God and His Father,
to Him
be g·,ory and
do
1
minio ,n for
1
ever
and ever.'' That i.s tl1e chorus
,
<>f tl1e skies, the sweet r,efrain of tl1e
e.verl.a"sting
song,.
'·Worthy
is, the
Lamb,'' they cry
.and ,again
tl1ey s,a.y,
''Ha .Jle
luj ah ''
Bu t we·re
salva ti.on.by w·orks
inst
1
ead of
by
Grace ·,
th,e
songs
'"r,ould be in praise of man. Ea ,ch w,oul,d
laud
his
f
1
ellow
or
himself, and et
1
ernity · ·would be: s,p,ent in re·c:o·u11ting perso
1
11a1
,~irtt1es and victories. Oh what a tir ·esome et,ernity · that
would be·. ·
· Ah it is better as it is,
With
the Lamb in the mid st of the
throne ,
and tl1e har ps all ·tuned to
Jesus'
praise. ·There will
be no self-admiration tl1ere, a·nd, co·nsequently, no, co1npari
sons and no rivalry, unless, indeed, we vie one with the other
•
..
as to who shall honor
Grace
the most. 'The
motto of each ·
will be, ''He t'hat
gloriet11t let
hitn glory in the
Lord.''
As
McC'heyne puts it, we shall be ''dressed in
'beauty
not our
awn.
T liat is the beauty of
it
So,
sa]vation
is of Grace.
and
of Grace
alone. God
will
have no
man
boasting,
and
boast
h
1
e assuredly
wou1d,
were
he
saved,
even
in
part, , by the works
of
his own hands. It is
admittedI ,y a hun1bling
doctrine ,.
We
wonder
not
that
it
is
not popu]ar.
Truth
seldom is. ''Truth is unwe1come, how~ver .
Divine.,, But is it not well to be humbled? · We are not dis•
posed to favor
any teaching
whi
1
ch
be-littles
God:t or magni
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62
The
undamentals
•
•
has been snat
1
che
1
d f r ·o1m helplessness and despai :r
by un,merited
grace,
will
never
forg ·et
to
carry
himself
as
a
fo:r,given
man. ' '
(Rev ~T.
Phil]ips.)
He ,vill not fail to
look
back to
the
rock
whence he was hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence he
v;,as digged. Gipsy Smith
keeps
the hedge row at the fo ,o·t
0
1
f. his Camb ·rid,ge gard .en that he may enjoy u.ninterrupted
view of the Common on Which his, fatl1er's tent was ·pitched,
and
whenc -e
he us
1
ed
to eally
forth as a
young timber-merchant.
(He
sold clothes -pegs, you remember.) We love him
for
this.
Lifted to
honor and
usef ulnes s by Grace,
he
·gives God
the
praise. Grac
1
e Divine make s graci ,ous men. Good works and
g·races
are b,y
no means .
excluded from believ
1
ers.'
lives. They
are the produ ct of gratuitous salvation, the eviden ce of saving
faith,
the acknowledgment of grateful hearts.
Tl1e Grace
,saved si.nner
W
1
orks ou,t th ,e
s.alvation
th.at has
been
wr
1
o·ught
iL him. He i.s his Savio ·ur's willi,ng bon ,d-slave. He cannot
be c:ointent witl1 trium ,phing in Cl1ris,t's grace; he must grace
His triumph, too. It
is,
with him as
it
is with the
inhabita~ts
of the city of B.ath, who r·ecord
their
,appreciation
of
its
heal
ing waters
on
a tablet
inscribed
as follows :
•
''Thes ,e healing
1
waters have
flow ,e·d
on
r ·om tim
1
e ,imme ,mor .ial,
Thei ·r virtu
1
e animpai ·red, their
heat
undimini .s·hed,
Their volume unabated;
they
explain the origin,
Account for
th e progress, and
demand the gratitude
Q,f
the City of B,ath .. ·
•
The analogy
i . nearly
perfect. Go,d'
1
s,
grac
1
e may well b
1
e
lik ,ened t.o
flowing
waters,
t
1
0 streams hot
and
h,ealth-giv ·i,ng,
to
streams th.at never cool
nor fai]. Moreover, '''they account
for
our
origin
and
progress,''
that is, we
owe
our spiritual
being
and we,]1-being to them.
And
as for
demanding gratitude ·
weJJ, '' 1Str
1
eams of m
1
er
1
cy nev
1
r c
1
easi·ng cal.I for so11gsof lou
1
d-
.
s,t praise. · ·
Oh, Jet us preach up · Grace, even if it be not gracio ,usly ,
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Salvation b y Grace
63
said C. H. Spur ,geon, ''give them the more of it.'' Not what
they wa~t; but what they need we must supp]y. If the age
•
is
pleasure-loving,
unbelieving,
self-satisfied,
the more call for
faithful
testimony
as to the nature of sin, God's attitude
to
wards 1t
1
and the terms on which He offers salvation. We
must aim the more at heart , and consci
1
ence. We m,ust seek
to ar ,ous,e and evc,n alarm the sinner, while we invite as ,vvoo
ingly as ever
to
the one Mediator. A full-orbed Gospel treats
. -
alike of ab~unding sin,
and
of
much
more
abounding Grace.
· Si'urely
Dr. Wat ·ts san ,g
truly
when he,
pictured
the ,r,an ...
somed
recountin ,g
their experie .nces of .G:race:
''Then all the chose ,n. s,eed
Shall m
1
eet around , the throne, ·
Shall
ble '.SS
th
1
e
conduct
1
0f
His
grac ,e,,
. And mak ,e His glories known.''
•
•
•
To me it h.a.s been what the same
poet
calls ''a drop of
heaven, to review God's plan fo,r my salva .tion, and to try to
•
s
1
e:t it f·orth. Toward , t'he stou t ,ships that have
C,a,r1·ied
me
acr ,0
1
ss
't.he
seas
I have
ever
cherished a
grateful
fee],i:ng.l How
•
n1uch more do
1
I
10
ve the, good ship of Grace th ,at has born
1
e
tne thus far on
.my way
'to th
1
e Fair Hav ,ens. An 'Unttstta1
opportunity was once
o·£fered
me
of
viewing
the v·essel on
which I was a passenger, before the voyage was quite com-
•
plete. After nearly three months in a sailing ship, we were
greeted by a:harbor tug, whose n1aster doubtless hoped for
the task of towing us into poft. There was, however, a
favorable breeze which,
though
light, promised to
hold
steady.
So ·the tng's . services w
1
ere dec,Jined. Anxious t,o e,arn an hon-
•
est pennyJ l1er master ranged alongsid
1
e the clipper, and trans - ·
shipped such passengers as
cared
to get a view from another
deck of the good ship that had brought them some fifteen
thousand ,nii1es. Y
1
ou may be sure that I was one of the,se. A
delightful
experience it was to
draw away from our floating
home, to mark her graceful ·
lines·,
her towering masts, her
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64
T he undament,aJs
ta ,per .ing ya r,ds, her sW,elling sails th
1
e white wave curling
at
h
1
er for
1
e-foo ,t,, and th,e
green
wak ,e win
1
ding ast
1
ern ,.
From
our new
view-point
items that
had
,grovvn familiar
were
in..,
vested with fresh interest. Tl1ere was the wheel to which we
had se
1
en six seamen lasl1ed in time ,of storm, and there the
binnacle, who se sheitet"ed compa ss had bee11 s.o constantly
studied
Sr,nce
the
S,tart,
and tl1ere the ,ch,am·,-11
0USe
with
its
treasur
1
es of wisdom, and yonder the l1uge-flul{edanchors, and
over al.I the
netw ,ork
of ropes a
tangle
to
the uninitiated ,.
Even the smok
1
e from the galley fire inspired
respect,
as we
remembered tl1e many meals that
·appetite ,s,
sharpened by
the
keen ·air of tl1e Sou ·thern S,eas, had dem
1
olished. And ·yond
1
er
•
is the port
of
one
1
s own cabin I What marvelous things had
been view
1
ed thr ·o
1
ugh that narro ,w peep,hole., and what sweet
sleep
had been
etijoyed beneath
it,
''rocked in tl1e
cradle
of
the
. deep.'' Oh it was a
brave
sight, that full-rigged ship,so long our
ocean home, which, despite contrary winds ·and
cross-cur1·ents,
and terrifying gales and t .antalizing calms, had ha'lf compassed
the
globe, and
had
bro,ught
her
11umerous,
passengers and
·val
uable freig .ht across , the trackl
1
es,s, l,eagu,es in ·safety. Do you
wonder that we cheer ,e,d the staunch ves ,,el, a,nd her skilful
co1nman,1e.r.,
and the ,ship's com.pany again
and
again?
I
1
can
hear the echoes of thos ,e hurrahs today .. Do you wonder that
we ,g~ve thanks for a prosperous voyage
by
the will of God,
and presently stepped back from the tug-boat to the ship
with
out question that what remained of the
journey
would
be soon
and
succeslsf
ully ,a,c
1
o·mplishe
1
d? . .
Let
me
apply
this incident. The good
ship is
FREE
GRACE,, an,d
I have taken
my
readers aboard
my
tug-boat
to
give them opportunity to view the means by which they have
already come so near (
how
near
we
know not) to
the
Haven ·under , the hill. . We
have
sailed ar ,ound
abotit her ',
and
told the tow,ering ' masts tl1ereof, and m,arked W e I her 1:pul
warks. We
h .ave
seen the breath of God fil,ling h
1
et
sails
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Salvation y race
65
brightened by the smile of His love. We have noted the
scarlet thread in all her rigging, and the crimson flag flying
at the fore . We have seen at the stern the wheel of God's
sovereignty by which the great ship is turned whithersoever
the Governor listeth, and on the prow the sinner's sheet
anchor: "Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast
out." The chart-house is the Word, and the compass is the
Spirit,
and there are well-plenished store-rooms , and spacious
saloons, and never -to- be-forgott en chambers wherein He has
given His beloved precious things in sleep, and outlooks
whence they have seen His wonders in the deep. Through
stress of storn1 and through dreary doldrums; through leagues
of entangling weed, and past many a chilling and perilous
iceberg, with varying speed and zigzag course, and changing
clime, FREE GRACE has brought us hitherto. We have, per
chance, a few n1ore leagues to cover . We may even stand off
·and on a while, near the harbor mouth, but , please God, we
shall have abundant entrance at the last. We have circled the
ship, and I call on every passenger to bless her in the name of
the Lord, and to shout the praise of Him who owns and
navigates her. All honor and blessing be unto the God of
Grace and unto the Grace of God Ten thousand, thousand
thanks to Jesus And to the blessed Spirit equal praise
t
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CHAPTE .R VI
DIVINE EFFICACY OF PRAYER
•
BY ARTHUR E. PIERSON
All the greatest ne ,eds, h
1
ot.t~1
of the Churc ·h. and of tl1e
world,
n1ay
be included in one: the need of a higher stand ard
of godliness;
and the
all -embrac ing secret
of
a truly godly
life is close and constant contact with the un s
1
een Go,d; th~t
contact is. learned and
practised, as
nowh ,ere els·e,
i·n tJ1e
s.ecret
lJlace of sttpplication and inte rcession.
Our Lord's first lesson in
the
school of prayer
was,
and
still is: ''ENTE R INTO THY CLOSET'' (Matt. 6:6). The
''c·lose.t''
is
the closed place,
·where , w·e
a1e
shut
in
a1one with
God, where the human sp irit waits t1pon an unseen Presence,
learns to recognize Him who is .a Spirit, and cu tivates His
acquaintance, fellowship, and f riendsl1ip. .
Eve rything else,
there£ ore, depends
upon
prayer. To the
praying soul the ,re bec
1
omes possible th . · faith which is the
grasp of the human spi1.
t
upon the rea ities and
verities
of
the unseen world .. To the praying
soul
there
becomes
possible
and natural the obedience which is the daily walk of the
disciple with
the
unseen God.
To
the praying soul there
becomes possible the patience, which is the hab it of waiting
for re:sults yet unse
1
en and ho ·pes ye,t unrealize
1
d.. To the
praying
sou ·1 there
becomes
possi 'ble ,
the
Jove
that,
Jike a
celestial
flood,
drowns out evil
tempers
and hate£
ul
disposi~
tions, and introduces us to a new world of gentle
and
gen
erous frames.
To
the p
1
rayi .ng soul
there
becom
1
es
po,tsible
an ,d
increasingly real the holiness which is personal conformity to
an an .seen Divine
im,age and ideal , and
the ·
in.nermost
secre :
of a heavenly bliss.
Those
who y·earn
fo .r
revivals
natura :ly
lay
much
stress
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Divine Efficacy of P ·~ayer
67
on preaching. But what is preaching without praying Ser
mons are but pulpit performances, learned essays, rhetorical
orations, popular lectures, or it may be political harangue s,
until God gives, in answer to earnest prayer, the preparation
of the heart, and the answer of the tongue. It is only he
who prays that . can truly preach. Many a sern1on that has
shown no intellectual genius and has violated all homiletic
rules and standards has had dynamic spiritual force. Some- '
how
it
has moved men, n1elted them, moulded them. The
tnan whose lips are tou ched by God's living coal fro1n off the
altar n1ay even stam1ner, but his hearers soon find out tfiat
he is on fire with one consu1ning passion to save souls.
;We need saints
in
the pew as well as in the pulpit and
saint ship everywhere is fed and nourished on prayer. The
n1an of business who pray s, lea rns to abide in his calling with
God; hi$ secular affairs and tran sactions become sacred by
being brought into the searchlight of God's prese nce. His
own business becomes his Father's business. He does not
tran1ple on God's com1nands in order to make money, nor
does he drive his trade and traffic throu gh the sacred limits
of the Lord's day, or defr aud his custom .ers, "breaking God's
law
for
a
dividend."
Praying souls becom e preva.iling saints. Tho se who get
farthest on in the school of pray er and learn most of its hid
den secrets often develop sort of prescience which comes
nearest to the prophetic spirit, the Holy Spirit showing
then1
'' thing s to come." They seen1, like Savonarola, to know sotne ..
thing of the purpose of God, to anticipate His plans , and to
forecast the history of their own titnes. The great suppl i
cato.rs have been also the seers.
There is no higher virtue in a church than that
it
sho uld
be a praying chur ch, for it is prayer that makes eternal reali-
ties both prominent and dominant . A church and a pastor
m y have any one of the current, popular types of "religious"
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The Fundamentals
life, and
sottls may n,ot be s:aved;
bu·t, as the lat
1
e
Dr ,.
Ski~ner,
of New York, used t
1
say: ''If th·e peculiar
type
of
piety
is that
which
is
inspired
by
a
sense of the po,wers of the
world
to come, sinners
will
be
saved
and saints
edified. E'Ven
he
,vorld
that
now is
will feel the
power of
such piety.
Praying
fe ,eds missio1is at hom1
nd
.abro,ad .. It
promotes
giving.
'Parsimon ,y i.s
stifled in the
atm .osphere
of
God's
pres
ence. Gifts are multiplied
and
magnifi ,ed
when
the
giver is
consecrated. When
disciples begin
to
pray for souls they
begin to
yearn over them and
to
be
willing
to make sacrifices
·for t.h·e·ir s.alvation. Tl,.e key
tl1at
1
Can
t1nlock the ·
treasury
of
God,s pro ·mi ses l1as marve ·tous power
1lso to unlock
·the tr ·eas
ures
1
f
hoarded wea ltl1, and makes even the ,abundance of deep
poverty to
abou nd
into tl1e
riches
of
liberality till the
wid -ow's
mites dro ·p into the
Lo1·d's
hands
even
mor
1
e frequently
than
•
th ,e m'illion s of 1nercl1.ant prin
1
ces.. No
man
can br ,eathe freely
in the atmo ,sphe,re of p1·ayer whil ·e he stifles benevol ,ent im-
pulses.
The
giving
of
money
prepares
for the
giving
of self,
and thus prayer malces tnissionary workers as w,ell
as
mis
sio·n.ary givers and suppor ·ters .
F
1
ew,, even amo1·gst ·t.he m
1
ost d
1
evo11t, h.ave ever fully felt
'h.ow
f.ar workers
in
''th ,e
mi11e
of
l1eathendom''
depend
on
those
who ''hold the
ropes. James Gilmour,
who,se
rare
and
radiant spirit so
impressed
the rude
Mongolians,
said that,
u11prayed for, he wottld
feel
Iil<e a
diver in the river bottom
with
no air to
breathe, or like a fire·mar1 on a
blaz.i11gbuilding
with no water in his empty l1ose ·
Prayer is
1iot to b·e
thoitgli t
tJie
less
of beca.itSe we are SO
often dr·ive1i to the throne of gra ce as a last resort. It i
part of the philosophy of prayer
that it
shall
reveal
its
full
efficacy only when and where alt
beside
fails us.
He re,
as in
all
1
lse,
it
is
only
at the: end of self ' w'·th a.ll itsl inv·entions,
that
we fi11d he beginning of
1
God witl1 all
His interpositions.
A prayi1ig heart is tlte one thing
tliat
tlie devil
cantiot
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Divine Efficacy of Prayer
69
easily cou-11.terfeit.
t is easy enough to imitate praying lips ,
so that hypocrites and Pharisees feign devoutness. But only
God can open in the heart s depths those springs of suppli
cation that often find no channel in language, but flow out in
groanings which cannot
be
uttered.
It is not worth while to waste much time in defending or
advocating prayer. Experi1nent makes argument needle ss.
This is not so n1uch a science to be mastered y
study as an
art to be learned by practice. Like the Bible, prayer is self
evidencing. It is a mysterious union of Divine and human
elements not easy of explanation; but to him who pray s and
puts God to the test along the lines of His own precepts and
p romises, God proves how real a force prayer is
in
His moral
universe.
Th~ best
way to prop up prayer is to practice it.
The pivot of piety, therefore is prayer. A pivot is of
double use,
it
acts as a
fastener
and
as
a center; it holds
other parts in place, and it is the axis of revolution. Ptayer
likewise, keep s one steadfas t in faith and helps to all holy
activity. Hence, as surely as God is lifting His people to a
higher level of spirituality, and 1noving them to a more un
selfish and self-denyi ng service , there will be new emphasis
laid by them upon supplication, and especially upon interces
s10n.
The revival of the pray ing-spirit is not only first in order
of development, but it is first in order of importance, for
without it there is no advance. Generally, if not unifonnly,
prayer is both starting-point and goal to every movement in
which are the ,elements of permanent progress. Whenever
the
Church s sluggishnes s
is
aroused and the world s wicked
ness arrested, somebody ha s been praying. If the secret his
tory of all true spir itual advance could be written and read ,
there would
be
found some intercessors who, like Jo b, Samuel ,
Daniel, Elijah, Paul and James; like Jonathan Edwards, Wil
liam Carey, George Miiller, and Hudson Taylor,
have
been
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The Fund amentals
led to shut tl1en1selves in the secret pl.ace with God, and have
labore ,d fervently i.n
p:raye1·,.
And
as
t.he s,ta.rtin .g-p,oint i.s thu s
found in supplication and intercession, so the final outcome
must be that God's people shall have learned to pray;
Other
" 'ise there will be rapid reaction and disa st rous relapse fro1n
tl1e bett ,er co·nditi
1
0llS S,ect11·ed ..
PRAYER PUTS MEN IN 1'0UCI-I
WITH
GOD
•
Tl1ere is
a
Divine
philosopl1y
behind thi .s fact. The great
est need is to keep in close touch with
God;·
·the g1·eate.st risk
is ·the loss ,of the s,e11se of tl1e Divine. In a world wl1e1·e
every appeal is to the phys ical senses and through them, real ..
ity is in dire ct proportion to the power and freedom of con
tact. What we see, heat.. ta ste, touch or smell what is ma
terial and
sens,ible
\iV
1
e can
ll
1
0t
doubt. The
pre s,en t
and
ma-
te1·ial ab.so
1
rb
1
s attention a11d ,appears real, solid,, s,ubstantia];
but the f utu1·e, the i1nmate1 .al, the invisible, the spiritual, seem
vague, distant,
illusi v·e,
imaginary.
Practically
tl1e unseen l1as
littl ,e or ' 110, reality an ,d influence with the vast majority of
1nanki ·nd. Even
th.e
t1nseen
G·od
Him.self'
is
to
1
most me n les,s
a verity than tl1e comn1onest object of vi sion; to many He,
~the
highe st verity, is
really
vanity, while the world's vanities
are practically the higl1est veritie s.
God's gr
1
eat C
1
orrective for this mo
1
St disastrous inver sion
and perversion of the true relation of things is prayer. ''Enter
int ,o thy
1
clos ,et.'' T'here .all is silence, secrecy, solitude , se
clusion. Within that l1o y of holies the disciple is left alon
1
e -
all others shut out, that
tl1e
suppliant 1nay be sl1ut in ivith
God. The silence is in 01~der o the hearing of
t'he
still, s1nall
voice that is d1·ow11ed n. wor]dl ,y clamo
1
r., and w·hich
ever1
a
httman voice may cause ·to be unl1e.ard or indistinct. The
secrecy is in order to a meeting with Him who seeth in secret
and is b.est seen in secret. The solitttde is for the
purp ,ose
of ,
being alone with One
who can
fully
impress
with His
pres-
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Divine Efficacy o,f
P1.,ayer
71
e11.e only
when there
is no
ot11er
p·resence to ,d,ive1·t tho ·ught ,
f he
place of seclusion
with
God
is the
one
school
where we
lear n
that
He is, and is tl1.e rewarder of tl1ose that diligently .
seek Him . The clos et is ''not only the oratory, it is the ob-
se,,.vato1,y, not for
pr ,ay
1
er
only,
but for prospect the wide-
1·eachi·ng,
clea.r-seeing, out]ool< upon ·tl~e ete ·111al Tl1e de,cline
•
of prayer is therefore the decay of piety; and, for prayer
to cease altogether, would be sp·ir itual d
1
eath,
for it
is to
every child of God the
breatl1
of li fe.
We cannot
too
stro ·ng1y
emphasize thi s
fact,
that
to keep in
close,
toi,cl~
with God in
tlie sec·ret
c,hambe·r
o,f Hi s presence
is the g1 eat f ·undamental unde ·rlying piwpose of prayer.. To·
speak
with
God is
a priceless privileg
1
e; but
what
sha .11
be
said of having and hearing ~Iim
speak
with us We can
tel .l Him
nothing
He
does
not know;
but
He
can tel1
us
what
we do not know, no imagination ·ha s ev,e·r, conceive :d, no re
se,arch ever unveiled. ,.fhe highe st of all possib le attainn1ent s
is tl1e knowledge of God, and this is the practica l
mode of
His
revelat ,ion
o,f· Himself.
Ev
1
en His l1oly Word
needs
to
be
read in the light o.f His own presence
if
it is to
be under
sto11., The praying soul hears God 1peak.. ''And
wh.en
Moses
was gone
into
the
tab ,ernacle
of the congregation to speak
with Him, then he heard tlze
voice
of On,e spieaking unto him
f
1·omoff the mer ,cy se,at tl1at was upon
the
ark of
t
1
estim ,ony -
from between the two cherubim, and He spake unto him''
(Num . .
7
:89).
Whe re there is this close touch with God, and this clear
insight into His name which is His nature, and into His
Wo1·d
whi ,ch is His
wil.1
made
kn,own,
there will be,
a
new po
1
wer: t
1
0 ,
walk with Him in holiness, and work with Him in serv icelf
''He mad
1
e known His , ways · unto
Mos,es,
His ,acts unto the .
c·hi'ld,ren of Israel.' ' Th ,e mass
1
of th
1
e
peo'p
1
le·
stood afar
0
1
ff
and saw
His deeds,
su~h as the overthrowing of
Pharaoh's
hoslts in
the , 'R
1
ed
Sea ;
but Moses
dr1w
near
int
1
0
1
the
thi,ck
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darkness wh
1
er,e God was, and in that thick
darkne :ss
he found
a light such
as never
shone elsewhere_. and in
that light
he reacl
God's
secret pla11s
and
purposes and interpreted
His wondrous
ways
of working. , ·
All practical
power
over sin
and over
men
depends
on
maintaining
this
secret communion
Elijah was
bidden,
first,
''go, hide thyself, , and th ,en,. ''go shew
thyself.''
Those who
abide in
the
secret place with God come
forth
to show them-
selves
mighty
to conquer evil, and
strong to work
and
to
war for God. They are
permitted
to read the secrets of
His
covenant;
they know
His
will ; they
are
the meek
whom
He guides
in
judgment and teache s
His way. Tl1ey are
His
prophets, who speak
for
Him
to others ; because they watch
the signs of the
times, discern H is tokens, and
read
His
sig-
nals W ,e some ·times count as mystics
tl10
se
who, li'ke
Savon -
arola and Catherine
of Siena,
claim to have communications
from God; . to have revelations of a definite plan of God for
His
Churcf1,
or
for
themselves as individuals, like the '
re-
f1ormer of E ,rfurt,
the
founder of the Bristol Orphanages,
or
the leader of the
China Inland Mission.
But may
it
not be
that if we
stum 'ble at these
expe·1·iencesit is because
we
do not .
have
them
our ,selve s ?
Have
not
m,any
0
1
£
the$e
m·en
and
women
afterward
proved b
1
y
their
lives .
that they
vvere
not
mistaken, and
·that
God l1as led them
by a
:way· that no ot ~1er
e ye cou ld trac ,e ?
P'RAYER. IMP .ARTS GOD'S POWER
•
In favor
,o,f
1
close
contact
witl1
the l.iving
Go,d· in
pr.aye,r,
there is another reason that rises perhaps to a still higher
level.
Prayer
not only puts us in touch with God, and gives
knowledge
of Him and His
ways,
but
it
imparts to ,
us
His
power. It is the touch
which
bring s virtue out of Him. It
is
the hand upon
the
pole of
a celestial battery, which
charges
us with: His secret life, energy, efficiency,.,
Things
whicl1
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Divine Efficacy of Prayer 73
are impossible with man are possible with God, and with a
man in whom God is. Prayer is the secret of imparted power
from God, and nothing else can take its place. Absolute
weakness foHows the neglect of secre t communion with God
and the weakness is the more deplorable, because
it
is of ten
unconscious an_d unsuspected, especially when one has never
yet known what true power is.
We
see men of prayer quietly achieving
resul ts of
the
most surprising char acter. They have the calm
of
God, no
hurry,
or
worry, or flurry; no anxiety, or care, no exciteme nt
or hustle or bustle--they do great things for God, and, like
John the Baptist, are great in I-Iis eyes, yet they are little in
their own eyes; they carry great loads, and yet
ar e
not weary
nor faint; they face great crises, and yet are not troubled.
And those who know not what treasures
of
wisdom
nd
strength and courage and power are hidden in God's pa
vilion wonder how it is. They try to account for all this by
something in the 1nan-his talent, or tact, original methods, or
favoring circumstances. Perhaps they try to imitate such
career by securing the patronage of the rich and mighty, or
by dependence on organization, or fleshly energy---or what
n1en call determination to succeed -they bustle about, labor
incessantly, appeal for money and co-operation, and work out
an apparent success, but there is none of that power of God
in
it which cannot be imitated. They con1pass thems .elves
about with sparks, but there is no fire of God; they build up
a great structure, but
it
is wood, hay, stubble; they n1ake a
great noiset but God is not in the clamor.
Nothing is at once so undisputable and so over-awing as
the way in which a few men of God have lived in Him and
He in them. The fact is, that in the disciple's life the fun
damental law is, Not I, but Christ in me. In a grand ly
true sense there is but one
Worker
one Agent, and He Di
vine; and all other so-called workers are instru1nents, and
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The Fundamentals
instruments only, in His hands. The first quality of a true
·ustrument is passivity. An active instrument ·would defeat
.its own purpose; all its activity must be dependent upon the
111anwho uses it. Sometimes a machine becomes unco ntroll
able, and then it not only becomes useless, but it
becomes
dangerous, and works damage and disaster. What would a
man do with a plane, a knife, an axe, a saw, a bow, that had
any will of its own and moved of itself? Does it mean noth
ing when, in the Word of God, we meet so frequently the
symbols of passive service-the rod, the staff, the saw, the
hamn1er, the sword, the spear, the threshing instrument, the
flail; and, in the New Testament, the vessel? Does it mean
that in proportion as a· man is lJ.JilfulGod can not use him;
that the first condition of service is that the human will is to
be lost in
God s so
that it presents
no
resistance
to His,
no
persi,stence
beyond or apart from I-Iis, and even ventures to
offer no
assistance
to His? George Miiller well taught that
we are to wait to know whether a certain work is God s; then
whether
it
is ours, as being com1nitted to us; but, even
then,
we need to wait for God s way and God s tinie to do His own
work, otherwise we rush precipitately into that which He
means us to do, but only at His signal; or else, perhaps, we
go on doing when He calls a halt. Many a true servant
of God has, like Moses, begun before his Master was ready,
or kept o working when his Master s time was past.
INTERCESSION
There is one aspect of prayer to which particular atten
tion needs to be called, because
it
is strongly emphasized in
the Word, and because it is least used in our daily life, namely,
intercessi.on.
This word, with what underlies it, has a very unique use
and meaning in Scripture. It differs from supplication, first
in this, that supplication has mainly . reference to the sup-
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Divitie
Efii 'cacy
of Praye'r
75
pliant and his own supply; and again, because interce ssion
not only
concertis
others, but largely i.mplies the need of
direct
Divine interpositi .on. Th ,e1·e are
1na11y
praye1·s t'hat, i11 their
an.swer;, :allo,w
our co-o,pe1·ation
and imply
our
activity .. When
we pray, '' ,Give us . this day our daily bread, we go to, worta
to
earn
th ,e
breaµ f .or ,¥hich W·e
pray. Tl1at is
God's law.
When we ask God to deliver us from the evil one; we expect
to be sob,er and vigilant, and resist the
adversary.
This is
right;
bt1t
our
activity ·
in
many
0
1
tl1er
matte rs
hinder ,s the .
full dis.play o,f
Go,d's,
p
1
owe1·, and h·enc,e a1so
01ur impre,ssion
of His working. The deepest co,nvictions of God's p1~ayer
answering are ther ef ,ore wro11ght in cases w·here, in the nature
of things, we are p1·ecluded f
ro1n
all
activity in
promoting
the result. .
The w .ord
o,f God
teaches
1~s
tha.t i1itercession
wiit,Ji
,God
is most necessar·y in cases wlie1' e ,ma1: is
most
po·we,rless.
Elij al1 is ]1eld befor ,e, us as a g1~eat intercessor, and the one
example ,giv·en is his
praye1·
for rai 11. Yet in this case he
could only pray; there vvas
nothing else
he
could
do
to un
lock tl1e l1eavens after three years and a l1alf of drought. And
is, there
11ot
a touch ,of Div .ine
poetry
in t 'he
f
or1n
in
which
the
answe1· can1
e
?
The
ri.sing·
cloud
tool<
t'h
1
e
shape
of ''
a,
man's
Jia1ttd', as tl1oug·h to
assure
.tl1e
prophet
how
God
s.aw
and heeded the .supplia~nt
l1and
rais ,ed to
Him
in praye1· .
Daniel
w,as powerless
to
move the
king or reverse his
decr ,ee ;
,all he could do was
to
''desire
mercies
of
tl1e God
of heaven
concerning
tl1is secret;''
a11d it was
·because he coul ,d do
notl·1-
.ing else,
could
·no
1
t,
even
gites.s
at
th,e
interpretation,
inasm·uch
as he knew not even tl1e dream tl1at it became abso,Jutely
sure, when both the
d1ea1n
and its meaning wer ·e maqe
- known, that 1God had interposed , and so even the heathen
king himself saw,
felt
a11d
confes -sed.
A],l
tl1rou.gh
his:toi'y
certa .in crise,s h.ave aris ·en w·he.n tlte
help of n1an was ut ·terly vai11. To , the f,~rma,]
1
Christi,an;, the,
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The Fundamen·t al8
carnal disc:ip]e, the
Unbelieving
SO'Ul, this fa
1
Ct, that th
1
er
1
e IS
noth ,ing
that
man c,ou1d
d,o, makes
p
1
rayer s,eem
almo,st
a
fo,lly,
perhaps ,a f ar
1
ce,, a wast .e of br
1
eath . But to1th
1
ose wh,o best
I
· know
God,
ma,n' s extr ,e1nity is God·
s
opportunity, and human
helplesS11es
S
become s not a reason fo,r the
sil1ll,C
1
1
0f de,,pair,
but
the
a,rgument for
praying in
faitl1. Invariably
thos ,e,
who ,se
faith in praye ,r is supernati1rally strong are those who have
most pro ved that God has
wrou ,ght,
b,y their conscious
1
com~
pul sory
cessati on of all
tl1eir
o,vn efforts
as
va,in
,and
h,opele,ss.
George 'M iiller set out to p
1
rove to a half -believing Chu,rcl1
and
an
unbelieving world
tl1at God
does directly
answer
pray .er; and to do thi s he purpo sel,y abstained from
all
the
ordinary and
otl1e1"wise
legitimate met'l1ods of appeal, , or of
acti ve
effort
to
secur ,e
the hou si11g,clothing
and
feeding
1
of
thousa ,nd s
of
o r,phans.
Hu,d,son
Taylor u11dertook to
put
missionarie s
into Inland
Cl1ina by
dependence solely upon
God, asking no C 0
1
JJections and
even r
1
efus ,ing
them in con-
' nectio11 wit,h p,ubl ic
me eti,ngs,
lest
sucl1
meet ,ings should be
constru ,ed as appeals f 0
1
r l1e1p. He ,a11
1
d hi ,s co-worl<,e:1·s ac
customed themselves
to lay
all wants b
1
efore
the , Lor
1
d,
and , to expect the answe1
4
,
and
ans\\rer
alvvays,
c,am
1
e
and
still
comes. The
study
of
missio11a11'
history
reveals
the
£,act
that,
at the very tim es when, i11
utter
despair of any
l1elp
bttt God's
there has been believing prayer, the interposition of God has
bee11111ot
conspicuously
se,en 110
1
w could it be
most conspic-
t1ous except amid such condition s ?
Every church ought to be a
pray
1
er circle;·
but
this
will
not
be so
1
long ,as we wait for tl1e wh,ole
Churcl1,
as a body, to
move
togetl1er. Tl1e mass o,f profe ,ssing Christians have too little
hol ,d
0
1
n God to
en,ter
l1ea,rtily int ,o
su
1
ch
l10
1
ly agreemen 't'.
To
all
who ye:arn
for a revival of the p
1
rayer-spirit we sugges t
that , in
e,very
co,igrega tion a
p1-ayer
circle ,be
fo r1ne
d, without
regard to
num ,bers.
Let a,ny pastot .. unite with l1imself
any
man or
woman
in
whom
he
discerns
mark s of peculiar spi1·itttal
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Divine Efficacy of Prayer
77
life and power and without publicity or any direct effort to en
large the little .company begin with such to lay before God any
matt.er demanding special Divine guidance and help. Without
any public invitation which might draw unprepared people
into a formal association-it will be found that the Holy
Spirit will enlarge the circle as He fits others or finds others
fit to enter it-and thus quietly and without observation the
little company of praying souls will grow as fast as God means
I
it shall. Let a record be kept of every definite petition laid
before God-for such a prayer circle should be only with
reference to very definite matters-and as God interposes and
answers follow let the record of His interposition be care
fully kept that it may become a new inspir ation both to
praise and to believing prayer. Such a resort to united
intercession we have ourselves known to transform a whole
church remove dissensions rectify errors secure harmony
and unity and promote Holy Spirit ad1ninistration and spir
itual
life
and growth beyond all oth er possible devices.
If in
any church the pastor is unhappily not a man who could or
would lead in such a movement let two or three disciples who
feel the need and have the faith meet and begin perhaps
by praying for
him.
In thi s matter there should
e
no wait
ing for anybody else;
if
there be but one believer who has
power with God let such a one begin intercessory prayer. God
will bring to the side of such an intercessor in His own
time and way others whom He has made ready to act as
supplica tors.
Not long since in a church in Scotland a minister sud
denly began to preach with unprecedented power. The whole
_ congregation was aroused and sinners marvelously saved. H e
himself did not understand the new enduement. In a dream
of the night it was strangely suggested to him that the who le
blessing was traceable to one poor old woman who was sto e
deaf
but who came regularly to chu rch and being unable to
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8 The Fundamentals
hear a word, spent all the time in prayer £or the preacher and
individual hearers. In the biography of Charles G. Finney
sjmilar facts are recorded of Father Nash, Abel ClearY, and
others.
Examples might be multiplied indefinitely . But the one
thing we would make prominent is this: God is summoning
His
people to prayer. He wills that men pray everywher ,
lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting ; that, first
of all
supplication, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks
be made for all n1en. ( 1 Tin1. 2: 8.) If this be done first of
all,
,every other most blessed result
will
follow. God waits t
be asked . In Him are the fountains of blessing and He puts
at
the disposal
of
His praying saints
all
their abundance; they
are, however, sealed fountains to the ungod ly and the unbe
lievin g. There is one key tha t always unlocks even heaven's
gates; one secret . that puts connecting channels between those
eternal fountains and ourselves. That key, that secret, is
prevailing prayer.
God has no greater controversy with His people today
than this, that with boundless promises to believing prayer
there are so few who actually give themselves unto interces
sion. This is represented as being a matter even of Divine
wonderment :
A nd there is none that calleth upon Thy name,
That stirreth up hims elf to take hold of Thee (Isa. 64:7).
The very fact that so many disciples, and in so many
parts
of
the world, are form ing prayer circles
or
unions
1s
itself a great incentive to increased and united prayer.
TRUE PRAYER
Our Lord taught a great lesson in Matthew 18 19. He
said: If two of you shall agree [symphonize] on earth
as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for
them of My Father which is in heaven. · The agreement re-
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Divine Efficacy of Pra yer 79
ferred to is not that of a mere human covenant, nor even
sympathy; it is symphony Symphony is agreemen t of sounds
in a musical chord, and depends upon fixed laws of harmony.
It can not be secured by any arbitrary arrangement. One
cann ot lay his fingers accident ally or carele;sly upon the keys
of a musical instru ment an d produce symphony of sounds.
uch touch may evoke only intolerable discord, unless regu-
lated by a knowledge of the principles of harm ony. Nay,
there is even a deeper necessity, namely, that the
keys
touched
shall themselve s be
in tune with the urhole instrument.
Two
conditions , then , are needful; first, that a skilful hand shall
put the whole instrument in tune; and then that an equally
skilful hand shall touch keys which are capable of producing
together what is called a true chord.
This language evinces Divine design. He is teaching
a grea t lesson on the mystery of prayer, which likewise
demands two great conditions ; first, that the praying sonl
hall be in harmony with God Hiinself; and then that tho c:e
who unite in prayer shall, because of such unity with
Him, be in harmony with each other. There must be, there -
fore, back of all prevailing supplication and intercession One
who,
with
infinite
skill,
tunes the
keys
into
accord
with
His
own ear; and then touches them, · like a master musician, so
that they respond together to H is will and give forth th e chord
which is in His mind.
No true philosophy of prayer can ever be framed which
does not include these conditions. Many have false concep-
tion of
what prayer is. To them it is merely asking for
what one wants. But this may be so far from God's stand-
ard as to lack the first essentials of prayer. It may be ask-
ing something to consume it upon our own lusts. We are to
ask
in the name''
of Christ. But that is not simply
using
His name in prayer. The name is the nature; it expresses
the character, and is equival ent to the person. To ask in
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80
The Fundamentals
Christ's name is to come to God, as identified with the very
person of Christ. A wife makes a purchase in her husband's
name. Literally, she uses his name, not her own. She says,
I am Mrs.
A ,
which means, I am his ' wife,
identified with his personality, character, wealth, commer
cial credit, and business standing. To go to God in Christ's
name is to claim identity with Christ as a member of His
body, one with Him before the Father, and having in Him
a right to the Father's gifts, a right to draw on the Father's
infinite resources.
Again, we are told that, if we ask anything ''according
to His will, He hear eth us. But what is asking according
to His will but ceasing to ask according to our own self
will ? Here the impulse is not human, but essentially Di
vine. It implies a knowledge of His will, an insight into
I-Iis
own mind, and
a
sympathy with His purpose. Now
is this possible unless by the Holy Spirit we are brought
into such fellowship with God as that He can guide us in
judgment and yearning, and teach us His way? He is in
deed able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we
ask or think,'' but it is according to His power which work
eth in us. If that power work not
in
us first, how can
it work
for
us, in an swered prayer?
In order to gain higher results, wrought for the Church
or the world, in answer to supplication, there must first be
deeper results wrought in the believer by the Holy Spirit.
In other words, there mu.st be a higher type of personal holi-
ness if there is to be a high r measure of power in prayer.
The carnal mind does not fall into harmony with God, does
not even see and perceive His mind, and hence the carnally
n1inded disciple can not discern the will of God in prayer ,
but is continually hindered and hampered by mistaking self
in1pelled petitions
for divinely inspired prayers, confoundi ,ng
what self-will craves with what is spiritually needful and
Scripturally warranted.
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Divine Efficacy of Prayer
81
God is calling His people to a revival of fa,ith in the Divine
efficacy of prayer.
Our Lord teaches us that
the
prayer
of
faith has the
power of a fiat or a Divine decree. God said sublimely, "Let
light
be "
and light was.
The
Lord Jesus Christ says:
"If
ye have faith as a grain
of
mustard seed"-in which, how
ever small, is the possibility and potency of li
e- ye shalJ
say to this mountain, Be ~hou removed; or to this syca
more tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and it shall obey
you." This is the language not of petition, but of decree.
It
is, in some sort, a laying hold on Omnipotence, so that
nothing is impossible to the pr aying soul.
When we reach such heights of teaching and compare them
with the low level of our Iife we are st ruck dumb with amaze
tnent, first at the astounding pos sibilities of faith, as put be
fore us, and then at the equally astounding impossibilit~es
which unbelief substitutes for the offered on1nipotence of
supplication. When we think of the possible heights of inter
cession we seen1 again to hear the saintly McCheyne crying
out: "Do
everything in earnest J
If
it is worth doing,
then
do it with all your might. Above all, keep 1nuch in th e
presence of G-od; never see the face of man till you have
seen His face." That is the preparation
of
prayer, prevail
ing first with God to enable us to prevail with man. Jacobi
must have been thinking along these lines when he said: My
watchword, and that of my reason, is not I, but One who is
more and better than I; One who is entirely different from
what I am-I mean God. I neither am, nor care to be, if
He
is not " It is prayer that
1nakes
God real-the highest
reality and verity; and that sends us back into the world with
the conviction and consciou sness that He i~, and is in us,
mighty to work in us, and through us, as instruments, so
that nothing shall be Impossible to the instrument, because
of the Workman, back of it, who holds and wields the weapon.
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The po
1
wer of such prayer defies
all
competition or in1i
tation
by
the most perfect fo1·ms of liturgy. Who ca11copy
or canvass the in1pri soned flame of a pric ,eless gem with mere
·brush
and
pigrnen·ts
r
Or
counterfeit
the
pl1otosphere
of
the
· sun with yellow chalk There is a flame
of
God which
Jlrayer lights withi 11; there is a glow and 1.ight and heat in
the life which can be kindled only by a co.al from the g·old,en
altar wh .ich isl bef ore tl·1e thr one. It is only the few who
find
their way
thither and
know
tl1e
enki .ndling po.wer ;
but to
tl1ose few
tl1e Churcr1
a11
1
cl
t l1e
wo.rld
owe mi,gh ty
upheaval s
and outpou ·rin,gs. (Rev. 8.)
1
C.hemi ,cal galvani sm po·SS
1
ess es1
thisl p
1
culiarity, that an
increase of its
pow
1
ers cannot be gai ned
by
increas ,ing
the
1
d'i•
mensions of the Celis of tl1e battery, but can be
by
i·ncreasing
tl1eir
n·umber.
We ·need
more interce sso1·s if
.we
a1e
1
to ha·ve
gr·eatly· incre·ased
power.
The
nutnber
of
1
cells
must
be
in
creased. · M,ore of
1
God's people must learn to pray. The
foes are too many for a f'ew to cope w·ith them, however
empowered of God. The variety of human want and woe,
the scattered m illions of
tl1e
un saved, th
1
e wide territory to
be
covered with intercessio11 all the se
and other
lik ·e
con
siderations demand multi plied
forces.
Each human being
has only a very limited k.nowledge of human n,eed. Our i11-
dividual circle of acquaintance is so comparatively narrow
that eve ·n the most prayerful spirit cannot survey the whole
field ,, But when in all parts of the destitute territory suppli
cators multiply, even t.hese na rr ·olw circle .s,, placed side b
1
y side
and largely overlapping, cover the whole broad field of neecl1
Our own. personal and
li1nited
knowledge and
range
of in~
telligent
sympathy meet and
touch
similar and sympathetic
s,ouls, so that what we
do
not
se,e
0
1
r feel or
pr.ay
for, ap ...
peals. to others of our fell ow discip,les ; and so, in proportion
a·s
th
1
e. i.nterces ,s,ors
multiply,
every i11teres' of
:m,ankind finds
its representatives in the secret place a11dat
the throne. ·
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83
We cannot 11take up
fo1
lack of praying by ,excess o,f wo1 k
ing. In fact working without praying is a sort of practi cal
a·tl1eisn(), foir it le·aves
out
Go
dt
It
·is,
t:he
pray ,er
·t]1at
pre
pares ·for work, that arms us for the warfare, that furnishe s
us for the activity.
It behooves
us, stud ,ying
intently the
p1·omises to prayer, to say
u11to
the L ,ord: ' 'This being
Thy
,vor d, I will hencef
ortl1
live as a 1nan of
pray er
and claim
my privile ge a11cl
s,l
my po,ve.r as
an int ercesso r."
H ere is
tl1e high.est
icle11tification
with the
Son of God.
It
is
almost being · adm itted
to a sort of
fellowship in .fii.s,
tnedi,a·to1·ia worl< .During this d·ispensation His work is
n1ainly interc
1
ession.
He
calls
us to take
a
subordinat e
part
in th
1
e ho,,y office, standi11g, lil<e Phinel1as, betwee n tl1,e living
a11dth
1
e clead ·to stay tl1e plagt1e; like E lijah, betwee n heaven ·
and
eartl1
to unlock heaven 's fl.ood-ga tes
of
ble ssing
and·
com
mand the
fir
1
e
an,d
flood
of
Go
1
d
Is
tl1is tr ·ue? Tl1en
what
ca11be 1nore awful a11claugt 1st than such di,gnity and ma
jesity
of p1·ivile.ge
Ignati11s
,ve lco1nes th e Numidia11 lio11
in the arena , saying: ''I am gra ·in of God ; I m·ust b,e
,grou11ti
betw een
the
teeth of lio11s to
n1al<:e
brea ,d
£or God's
peo1)le.'
He
felt
in
the hour
o,f
1nartyrdom the privilege
of joini11 t
hi .s dyi11g Lord in a s,a
1
crifice t'hat Bus hn ell woul
1
d call
1
''vi
ca1~ous. '
Who will joi11the ·rise11
Lo,·1·d
11 a se·rvi1,e of inte.r·ces
1
sio·n ?
The
greate st
difficulty
in the
way of p
1
ractical conv ·ersion
of
1nen may not
be i11 God's
eyes so mucl1 a
barrier
of ungodli
n,ess amo11g th ,e l1eat·he11as a bar rier of unbelief among Eris
own
1
disciples
The
sixteentl1 centu1·y
\\,as
g1·eat
in
pain ters,
the s,eve11-
teenth in philosop 'hers, the
1
eighteenth in wr'ite·rs, tl1e nine
- teenth in preacher s
and inv ento ,rs ;
God grant that the
twen
tietl1 may be forever historical1y memorable as th
1
e century
•
of
intercessors.
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•
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CHAPTER VII
WHAT CHRIST TEACHES CONCERNING FUTURE
RETRIBUTION
BY REV. WM. C. PROCTER, F . PH.,
CROYDON, ENGLAND
There are four reasons for confining ou; consideration of
the subject of Future Retribtttion to the teaching of our Lord
Jesus Christ:
( 1)
It li,mits the range of our inqui ry to what is possible
in a brief essay .
There will be no occasion to examine the
56 passages in the authorized version of our Bible which con
tain the word He ll, ( most of which are the translations of
the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek .Hades, meaning the
grave and the unseen state , ) and we can concentrate our
attention on the ten passages in which our Lord uses the word
Gehenna'' ( which was the usua l appellation in His day for
the abode of the lost ) together with those other verses which
evidently refer to the future state of the wicked.
(2) It affords a sufficient rznsw e,r to the speculation of
those who don t know, to refer to the revelation of the 01te
who does know. Many other pas sages might be quoted from
the New Testament, written under the inspiration of the H oly
Spirit, who was promised by our Lord to I-Iis disciples to
guide them into all truth, and show them things to co1ne''
(John 16 :12, 13) ;
but, in taking the words of Christ Himself )
we shall find the greatest ground of common agreement in
these days of loose views of inspiration . Surely, He who is
The Truth would never misrepresent or exaggerate it on a
matter of such v.ital importance, and would neither encourage
popular errors nor excite needles s fears .
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1¥hat Christ Teaches Concerning Futu ·re Retribut<ion
85
(~)
lt ·al.so affords a sufficient answer to those who repre
sen,t the doctrine as unreasonable and dishonoring to God, and
who regard those who hold it as narroiu niinded and hard
hearted., to remind theni
that
all the
very expressions
which
are m.ost fiercely deno
1
wnced in the present day fell from the
lips of the Saviour who died for us, and came from the heart
of
the
Lover
of souls. Surely we have no right to seek to be
broader minded than
He
was, or to nurture false hopes which
have no solid foundation
in
His teaching;
while
to assume a
greater zeal for God's honor, and a deeper compassion for
the souls of men, is little short of blasphem y. The current
objections to the ortho dox doctrine of hell are made by those
who allow their hearts to run away with their heads, and
are
founded more on sickly sentimentality than on sound scholar-
ship.
( 4)
In. conside1-ing the s ·ubject as prof essing Christians,
the words of the Master Himself ought surely to
pu t
an end
to all controversy.: and these are clear and unmistakable ivhen
taken in their plain and obv iou s meaning, without subjecting
them to any
fo rced interpretation.
It is greatly to be re-
gretted that they are not more frequently dealt with in the
n1odern pulpit; but ministers are only human, and there is
a strong tempt ation to preach what is palatable, rather than
what is profitable. In this ca e, surely, history repeats itself;
for we read in Isa. 30:
10
of tho se who said to the prophets of
old: Prophesy not unto us right thing , speak unto us smooth
things, prophesy deceits ; and a cowardly yieldit g to this de-
mand has produced an emasculated Gospel and an enfeebled
ministry in the present day.
Coming now to consider briefly Christ's teaching on the
subject, let u s ask, first of all:
1 WHAT DID OUR LORD TEACH AS TO THE CERTAINTY OF
FUTURE RETRIBUTION
r
The word retribution is to be pre-
ferred to punishment' because the Bible teaches us that the
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86
The
Funda1nentals
fate of the wicked is not an arbi trary ( n1uch less a vindictive)
infliction, but the necessary consequence of their own
sins.
Taking the passages in their order, in
MATT.
S
:22; Chri st
speaks of causeless anger against, and contemptuous co1idem
na~ion of, others as placing us "in danger of the hell of fire, '
while in verses 29 and 30 He utters a similar warning concern
ing the sin of lust; and the se are in the Sermon on the Mount,
which is the most generally accepted part of His teaching In
chapter 8
:12
He speaks of unbeliev ing "ch ildren of the King
dom" being "cast forth into the outer darkness", and adds,
"There shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth "-ex pres
sions which are repea ted in chapters 22
:13
and 25 :30 In
chapter 10 :28 J esus said: "Fear Him which is able to destroy
both ~oul and body in hell"-a wholeson1e fear which is de
cidedly lacking in the present day, and which many people
regard as a remnant of superst ition quite un suited to this en
lightened age In our Lord 's own explanation of the parable
of the tares and wheat, He declared : "The Son of Man shall
send forth H is angels, and they shall gather out of His king
dom all things that cause stu mbling, and then1 that do iniquity ,
and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be
the weeping and gnashing of teeth . The angels shall come
forth, and sever the wicked from among the righteous, and
shall cast them into the fur nace of fire; there shall be the
weeping and gna shing of teeth " (chapter
13 :41,
42, 49, 50). In
chapter 23 :15 He speaks of the hypocritical Pharisees as "chil
dren of hell," showing that their condu ct had fitted them
for it, and that they would "go to the ir own place",
like
Judas
(whom He describes as "the son of perdition" in John
17:12),
while in verse 33 He asks: "How shall ye escape tht: judg
ment of hell?" The law of retribu tion can no more be re
pealed than that of gravitation; it is fixed and unalterable.
That hell has not been prepared for hum an beings, but that
they prepare them selves for it, is clear from the sentence
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1
•
What Clirist Teaclies Co ice Anirigutu1 e Retribution 87
which our Lord says that He will pronounc
1
e upon those on
His
left hand in
the
last
great
day
''Depart from Me,
y,e
curse d, into the eternal fire ,7-1hich is prepared for the devil
and l1is angels'' ( Chapter 25 : 41).
Turning to the Gospel
according
to MARK, we find our
Lo rd saying, in chapter 3 ;29: ''Whosoever shall blaspheme
agai ns,t the Hol y Spirit
h,ath ne, rer
f,orgiveness, but is guilty
of
an
1
eternal sin.'' Whatever view
may
be
tak .en ,of the
char
acte r
1
of blasphemy against the Holy
1
Gl1
ost,
th
1
e cause and con
sequence are here
closely
linked to
1
gether, ,
eterna 'l
s,i,n bringing
eternal retri 'butiott~ The words in
the 0
1
r'ig·inal
undoub ,tedly
i,ndicate ,a'n, invete·,at
1
e habit r,ath ,er than an isolated act, and
,;vould p1·ob,ably be better translated, '
1
' is h,eld .
under the power
1
of a,n et
1
ernal
sin.''
This
in
itself preclu ,des
t'he possibility of
forgiveness, because
it assumes
the
impossibilit.,y of·
repent-
•
ance; beside ,s, each re·petition involvin ,g a fresh , p
1
e,nalty,
the
P'Unishment is naturally unen
1
ding. · Similarl ,y, in John 8 :2.1, 24,
our Lor ,d's twi
1
c,e repeated declaration to th.ose Jews wh.ich
b
1
elieved not on Him, '
1
'Y e shal .l
d·ie in
yo,ur , s.ins'', indicates
tl1at unf orgiv
1
en sin
mu st
rest upon the soul
in c,o,ndemnation
and pol]uti
1
on;
for
dea t]1,,
so
far
f rom changing
men's char
acters, only fixes them ;, and hence Chris
1
t
speaks in ch,apter
S :29 of ''the resurrection of d,amnation''. Once more,. the
\vords
of
the
Asce11ded
and
Glorified
Saviour re,corded in
Rev.
21 :8
1nay be
quoted: "The fearful,
and
unbelieving, and the
abominab 'le, and murd
1
erers ,, and whoremongers, and sorcerers,
an
1
d i
1
dolaters, an d all liars, sha ll h,ave their part in the
l1ke
which
'burneth
with
fire
,and brimston
1
e; which is the second
death.'' ·
A careful stt t,dy of the Script ural uses of the words ''lif et' ·
and '''d
1
eath'' will clearly show that the root ideas are respec
tively
''union
1
and ''separation''. Physical life is union of .the
spirit with 'the body, spiritual life is the uni.on of the spirit
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88 The undamentals
summated to all eternity. Similarly, physical death is the
sepa ratio n of the spirit from the body, spiritual death is the
separation of the spirit from God, and eternal death is the
perpetuation of this separation. Hence, for all who have
not experienced a second birth, "the second death" becomes
inevitable; for he who is only born once dies twice, while
he ,vho is "born again" dies only once. As against the doc
trine of annihilation, Rev. 20 :14 may be quoted: "Death
and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second
death, even the lake of fire".
2. WH AT DID CHRIST TEACH AS TO THE CHARACTER OF
FUTURE RETR IBUT ION
We have already seen that He spoke
of it as full of sorrow and misery in His seven-fold repetition
of the striking expression: "There shall be the weeping and
gna shing of teeth" (Matt. 8:12; 13:42, SO; 22:13; 24:51;
25 :30; Luke
13
:28). In Mark 9 :43-48, our Lord twice
speaks of "the fire that never shall be quenched", and thrice
adds, "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not
quenched''.
f
course He was using the common Jewish
metaphors for Gehenna, taken from the perpetual fires that
burned in the valley of Hinnom to destroy the refuse, and the
worms that fed upon the unburied corpses that were
cast
there; but, as we have already seen, He would never have
encouraged a popular delusion. Our Lord twice spoke of
fruitless prof essors being "cas t into the fire" (Matt. 7 :19;
John
I
5:6) ; twice of "the furnace of fire" (Matt.
13
:42,
SO);
twice of the "he ll of fire" (Matt. 5 :22; 18 :9) ; and twice of
"etern al fire" (Matt. 18 :8 ; 25 :41) .
Granted that "the undying worn1 and unquenchable fire"
are metaphorical, yet these striking figures of speech must stand
for startling facts, they must be symbolical of a terrible reality.
We need no ·more regard them materially than we do the
golden streets and pearly gates of heaven; but, if the latter
are emhlematic of the indescribable splendors of heaven, the
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What Christ Teaches Concerning Future Retribution
BS
former must be symbolical of the unutterable sufferings oi
hell. One can no more presume to dogmatize on the one than
the other, but it requires no vivid stretch of the imagination
to conceive an accusing conscience acting like the undying
worm, and insatiable desires like the unquenchable fire. In
our Lord's parable of the rich 1nan and Lazarus, the former i
repre sented as being in torments and in anguish even in
''Hades, and, that memory survives the present life and ac
companies us beyond the grave, is clear from Abraham's
words to him: Son, remember (Luke 16 23-25 ). Could
any materia l torments be worse than the 1noral torture of an
acutely sharpened conscience , in which me1nory becomes re
morse as it dwells upon misspent time and misused talents,
upon omitted duties and co111n1ittedsins, upon opportunities
lost both of doing and of getting good, upon privileges neg
lected and warning rejected? It is bad enough here, wh~re
memory is so defective, and conscience may be so easily
drugged; but what mu st it be hereaft er, when no expedients
will avail to bani sh recollection and drow n remorse? The
poet Sta rkey stimulate s our imagi nation in the awful lines:
''All that hath been that ought not to have been,
That might have been so different; that now
Cannot but be irrevocably past. Thy gangrened heart,
Stripped of its self-worn mask, and spread at last
Bare, in its horrible anato my,
Before thine own excruciated ga ze ;
while Cecil puts the matter in a nutshe11 when he writes:
Hell is the tru th seen too late.
Again, what material pain could equal the moral torment
- of intensifi'°ed lusts and passion s finding 110 means of gratifi ..
cation, insatiable desires that can have no provision for their
indulgence, or i indulged, all the pleasure gone while the
power remains? Surely, such expressions as the undying
worm and the unquenchable fire represent, not pious fictions,
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The Funda mentals
but plain facts; and we may be sure that the reality will
exceed, not fall short of, the figures employed, as in the
case of the blessedne ss of the redeen1ed. The woes thus
pronounced
are
more terri Lle than
the
thunders of Sinai, and
the doom denounced more awful than that of Sodom; but we
should never forget that these terrible expressions
fell
from
the lips of Eternal Love, and came from a hea r t overflowing
with tender compassion for the souls of men.
3.
WHAT DID CHRIST TEACH AS TO THE CONTINUITY OF
FUTURE RETRIBUTION?
I s there any solid basis in His re
corded word s for the doctrine of eternal hope,
or
the shadow
of a foundation for the idea that all men will be eventually
saved? Much has been made of the fact that the Greek
,vord
aionios ( used
by
our
Lord in
Matt. 18 :8 and 25
:41,
46, and t rans lat ed everlasting in the Authorized, and eter
nal in the Revised,
Version)
literally means
age-long ;
but
an examination of the 25 plac es in which it is used in the
New ..estan1ent reveals the fact that it is twice used of the
Gospel, once of the Gospel covenant, once of the consolation
broug ht to us
by
the Gospel, twice of God's own Being, four
times of the
f
utuFe of the wicked, and fifteen times of the
present and
future lif e of
the
bel iever . No one think s of
limiting its duration in the first four cases and in the last,
yvhy
then do so in the other one? The
dile1nma
become
acute in considering the word of our Lord recorded in l\1att.
25 :46, where precisely the same word _s used concerning the
duration of the reward of the righteous and the retribution of
the wicked, for only by violent perversion and distortion can
the same word in the same sentence possess a different sig
nification. Again, it is somethn es ur ged that, as salt has a
purifying power,
the
words, everyone shall be salted with
fire,''
in Mark 9: 49, have this significance in the case of future
punishment; but the context clearly shows ·that its preserving
power is alluded to , for the passage speaks of the undying·
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What Christ Tea ches Concernfrig Future Retribution
91
wonn and .the unquenchable fire. Besides, if the Divine chas
tisements are ineffectual here in the case of any individual,
when there is so much to restrain men and wo1nen from
wrong-doing, how can they be expected to prove effectual in
the nex t world, with all these restraints removed, and only th e
society of devils?
It
is certainly somewhat illogical for those
who make so n1uch of the love of God to argue that punish
ment will prove remedial hereafter in the case of those whom
Divine Love has failed to influence here. Not only is ther e
not the slightest hint in the teachi_..
g
of our Lord that future
punishment will prove ren1edial or correcti ve, but His word s
concerning Judas in Matt. 6 ~ 4are inexplicable on that sup -·
position. Sure1y H is existence would still have been a bles
sing
if
his punishment was to be followed by ultin1ate restora
tion, and Chri st would therefore never have uttered the sadly
solemn words: It had been good for that man
if
he had not
been born.'' Similarly there is a striking and significant con
t rast between our Lord's words to the unb elieving Jews
recorded in John 8 :21 : Whither I go ye cannot come, and
tho se to Peter in chapter 13 :36 : Whi th er I go, thou canst not
follow Me now, but ti1ou shalt follow Me afte rwa rd s.
As character tends to pern1anen ce, heaven is a place of
perf ect holin ess and hell mu st be of the opposite; and this
throws light upon the words of Rev. 22 :11, which were ap
parently uttered by our ascended, glorified, and returning
Lord: He that is unrighteous, let him do unr ighteousne ss
still; and he that is filthy, let him be made filthy sti ll; and he
that is righteo us, let him do righteou sness still; and he
that is holy, let him be made
holy
sti ll. The doctrine
of universal restoration springs from a natural desire to wish
the history of mankind to have a happy ending, as in most
story books; but it ignores the fact that, by granting man
free will, God has (as it were) set a boundary ' to His own
omnipotence, for
it
is a moral impossibility to save a man
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The undamentals
against his will. Surely eternal sin can only be followed
by
eternal retribution; for,
if
a man deliberately chooses to
be
ruled
by
sin, he must inevitably be ruined by it. One never
hears of the
doctrine of final restoration being applied t~
tbe
devil and his angels, but why not? If the answer is, Because
they cannot and will not repent, the same is surely true of
ma,ny human beings.
Not only is there no vestige of foundation in our Lord 's
words for the doctrine of univer salism, there is also no shadow
of a suggestion of any restoration of the wicked hereafter.
So far from this being the case, the parable of the rich
1nan and Laz aru s rings the death knell
of
any such hope.
Abraham is there represented as saying to Dives: ''Between
us and you there is a great gulf fixed, that they which would
pass from hence to you may not be able , and that none may
cross over from thence to
us (Luke 16 :26).
That
fixed
gulf is surely
a
yawning chasm too deep to be filled up, and
too wide to be bridged over; and the awful description of
hdl
by the poet Milton, in ''Paradise
Lost ,
remains sadly
true:
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dw ell ; hope never comes
That
comes to all, but torture without en d.
4. WHAT DID CHRIST TEACH AS TO THE CAUSES OF FUTURE
RETRIBUTION? A careful study of our Lord's words show
that there are two pri mary causes, namely, deliberate unbelief
and wilful rejection of Him; and surely the se are but different
aspects of the same sin. In Matt. 8 :12, it was the contrast
between the faith of the Gentile centurion and the unbelief
of the Jewish nation which drew from His lips the solemn
words: ''The children of the Kingdom shall be cast out into
outer darkness; while, in chapter 23 the awful denunciation
in verse 33 is followed by the sad lamentation: How oft en
would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen
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What Clirist Teaclies C01zce .1ii1igFutiere
Retributioii 93
gathereth ·her chickens under her wings, and ye would n.otJ•
( verse 37). Similarly, in Mark 3 :29, R.
V.,
the
''eternal
sin;,
spo~en of can ,onl.y b·e
that
1
of continued
reje-ction of the
off
er·s of ln
1
ercy ,; and in. John 8 :24, Otlr Lord plainl.y de
ctar1S : ·
'I :f
ye
be·lieve.
n
1
ot th.at .I a.m He,
ye
shal.J die
in your
s
1
ins.'' ' FinalJy., in Ma .rk 16 :16, we fin,d ·the w
1
ord s :
'''He
that
believeth and
is 'baptized sl1all be saved; but
he
tha .t disbe·
lieveth shall be condemned. A caref l1·1 consider ·ation of
these
passag es, and
esp ecially o·f
the
last,
will
help to
remove
one great difficulty with regard to the whole subject, namely,
the future state of
those
who have never had the Gospel
so plain.1y
presente d
to
them as to enable them to
deliberat ·ely
accept or reject Christ, t,o willi11gly
be lieve
tl1e good news or
,\~ilfully disb,elieve
it.
- Another
difficulty
is
1·e1nove.d
when
we r
1
ealize that
ot1r
Lot··d t.aught that tl1ere ,v
1
ould be diffe1,.
1
nt deg1·e1s in
he,11
•
as in heaven .
Tl1us,
in M.att. 11 :20-24 I-Ie taught
tl1at it
wo·uld be ''more tole rab
1
le in the d.ay o,f· judgment'' f or Tyr ie
and .Sido n than for Chorazi n and Bethsaida, and fo r Sodom
than for Cape1~na1m; and in 11ark 12 :40 He speal{s of
'' greater
dan1nation. It
is
clear that future retri bution will
be propor tio11ed to
the amount
of gt.tilt
committed
and. of
grac ·e r·ejected. ( See also Luke · 12·:47, 48; J ohn 19:11.)
We l1ave so fa r exan1ined, as thoroughly as pos
1
sible within
tl1is limi ted sp.ace,
all the
record ·ed words of
1
0Ur
1
Lor ·d which
bear on th .is
important sub_ject. It
only remains,
in
1
COn
clusion, very br iefly to point out tl1at the
whole
drift of
Christ :s
tea.c/ii,ig
,co,11firms
W
1
hat
we
lea1 11
f 1~
om
thies,e
isolated
pass~ges, and that
f ii
titre retribution is not me·rely an in?.ci-
de1:tal bi.tt a fu1idamental
part
o·f the Gospel message. It is
tl1e
da ·rk backgroun ,d
on
wh ich
its loving invitations
and tender
expostulatio ns are ·presented, a11d the G,ospe1 message lo,ses
much of its force when the doctrine is left out. Bttt, worst
of all, the earnest exhort ations to immediate
repenta11ce
a11d
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The Fiendamentals
faith lose their urgency
i
the ultin1ate result will be the
same if those duties are postponed beyond the present life. Is
it seriously contended that Judas will eventually be as John,
Nero as Paul, Ananias and Sapphira as Priscilla and
Aqui la?
Finally, the doctrines of hea.ven and hell seem to stand or
fall
together for both rest upon the same Divine revelation,
both are described metaphorically, and both have the same
word ~verlasting applied to their duration. If the threat en-
ings of God's Word are unreliable, so may the promises be; if
the denunciation s have no real 1neaning, what becomes of the
invitation s ? Ru skin well terms the denial of hell ' the most
dangerous, becau se the n1ost attractive, fonn of modern in-
fidelity. But is it so modern? Is it not an echo of the devil' s
insinuating doubt: Yea, hath God said ? followed by his
insistent denial,
Y e
shall not sure ly die, which led to the
fall of man? Let us, therefore, believe God's truth, rather
than the devil's lie; let us accept Divine revelation, rath er
than human speculation; and let us heed what Christ so
plainly taught, with0ut mitigating, modifyingt or minimizing
His solemn warnings.
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•
MES SAGE FR OM MISSIO S TO THE 1IODER
r
MINISTR Y
BY REV, CHA S. A . B
1
0W E N, A . M . , PH . D.,
OLY MPIA .. WASJI I N(;1'0N
It
is not my
purpos e
to ent er
into
a
def ense of,
nor
cham
pion the cause of, mis sions. They stand there
immovable
in
the purpo se of
Go,d.
They are the corner -stone
as
well as
the
crown
in
the fabric of
the
Chri stian Church.
This
stone
,vhich for
s,o many yea1·s
wa s
rejec ted
is
now
become the head
of the cor ner, a11d
wl1osoever sl1all
fall
ttpon
it 'hatevet
church shall
igno re its claims shall
be
broken.
It is my pur ,po,se r,a·ther
to
seek in the fiel
1
d of
missic,~s
for
•
so .ne t essageo the tnodern ni.inis·try, ·f
0
1
r
son1e
inspiration
to the hom e church. I
l<now it
is
i1npos,sib1e
to divorce
the
Church
from
missions they are
both
one;
but if
we
1nay
do
so
in our
thoug11t
for a time, we shall find
tl1at n1issions
are not so much in need
of
the
hon1e
church
as
the
home
church is in need of n1issions. Th ,e
hon1e churc11
toda.y
is
not
so much the source of
e11couragen1ent
to missions as missions
a re the
fountain
of inspi1atio11
to
·the
l101ne
church.
The
q11estion is no longer wh ,ether t·he heathen can be
saved
witfi
out tl1e Gos.pel, but whethe r the
1
Gos,pel can he s,aved for the
l1ome c·hurch
if
it
is n
1
ot given
speedily
to the
heathen.
Acro,ss the whole
Cl1urcl1
today
is an appalling dearth of
aggressive
spiritual
life.
Earnest sottls
are
discouraged,
ancl
many
almos ,t
despairing. They are groping
and asking
what
is the trouble
and
what can be done.
Whatever
of encour-
•
agement there is comes largely from the mission fields.
On
the
•
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96
The Funda rnentals
souls by tens of thousands are being born every year. The
faith of the missionary was never stronger, nor his hope
brighter. The only cloud that cros ses his horizon is the fear
lest the church at home n1ay not live up to her privilege~
If we in the home churches, with all our machinery and
members and wealth and education and favorable conditions,
as we think, are Iarg~ cumberers of the ground; and
if
mis
sions against great qdds, improperly supported, with very
imperfect equipment, humanly speaking-if they are sowing
and reaping abundantly, and to a large degree a re saving
the Church from utter humiliation when the Mast er comes
year by year seeking fruit, then we ought to ask missions
the secret of their power. If our lamps in the h01ne churches
are burning dimly, if out of our twilight and shadows we see
the light in the far away distance shining steadily, it might be
well for us to ask what kind of oil
fills
that lamp. Like
Apollos the eloquent, the home church ought to be willing
to be instructed by this Aquilla and Priscill a in the way of
God more perfectly.
Now
if I
read aright the story of missions, the secret of
their power, the message they bring to the modern 1ninistry
and to the whole Church is the en1phasis upon thi s trinity
of doctrines: Atonement in Chri st, Mini stry of the Spirit.
and Prayer.
I
THE ATONEME NT AN D MISSIONS
In en1phasizing the atonen1e11t
in
Christ we believe that
missions have good Scriptural grounds for their posi t ion.
God forbid that
I
should glory save in the cross of Chri st,
was Paul's battle cry. No doubt, on going to Athens and
Corinth, Paul may have been tempted, because of their edu
cation and culture, to preach differently from what he did to
the rough people of Galatia. But he did not. This is his
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•
•
te,stimo
1
ny as o the kind. of pr
1
ea
1
cl1ing:
1
''I ,deliv
1
ered unto
you
firs it of all
·tha 't which I also r,eceiv1d, tha .t Christ d:ied for lour
S1ns
acco
1
ding to
1
the Scr .iptures''
1
(
1 Cor. 1S :3). And
1
this
was
d
1
one in a most earnest fashi
1
on.
''I determin
1
ed
·to know
nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified'' ( 1
Cor. 2 :2)
1
• So deeply did that first great missionary feel
the importance of this truth
that
he prays ,a curse upon any
·one who preaches a different doctrine. So vit .al was this to
Paul and so large a
plac
1
e has it in Scrip
1
ture,
that we believe
.. he words 0
1
f a recent writer are true: ''The deatl1 of Christ
has not th ·e place assigned to it,
either
in
preaching or in
theology, which it has in the New Testament.'' And again:
''lt is not unjust to say that no ·man will so preach the Gospel
as to l
1
eave the impr
1
es,s,ion th,at hie has the Word of God b
1
el1ind
him
if
he
is,
inwardly at
war
with th
1
e idea of
the
ato
1
nem
1
ent''
( Denny ''Death of Christ'' ' Introduction a·nd p. 2
1
85). .
Passing
1
over the intervening ages till we come to the
'Father of Modern Missions,'' we find h.im saying ·, '''It is
absolutely necess .ary * * * that we ke
1
ep to the example of
Paul, and mal<e the gr
1
eat subject ,of our preacl1ing Chris,t,
the crucified'' (Car
1
ey's
Covenant) ,. Look at
the
Moravian
Church; for every
fifty-eight communicants
in th
1
e
home
church they support one missionary in a foreign land, and for
ei ery member in the home church they have two and six ..
- tenths members gathered in congregations among the heathen.
What is the inspiration of this church which so
ins1pired
Carey
that
he·
exclaim
1
ed: ''See what these Moravians have
d.one 1''
Their secre ·tary of
n1is,sions
in
a -'ecent address
tells , us
that ,
the
1
compulsion of the Mo :ravian Church is n
1
ot fro ,m the ,great
commi,s.si·on.,
but
£ram thi ,s
.Prophecy :: ''When His , so·ul, shall
mak .e
an
1
0:ff1ri11g
for sin,
He
shla.11
siee
His
s.ee,d,
H
1
e
Shal[
prolong His ,days, an.,d. the ·ple,asur
1
e
of the
Lo·r·d s,hall
pro ,sper
i11
His hand. He shall
see·
of the
travail
of His :soul,
.and
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The Fundamentals
tion with the great, because He poured out His soul unto
death. From this they have their battle cry: To win for
the Lamb that was slain, the reward of
His
sufferings. .The
only way they can reward Him is by bringing souls to Him.
They are the only compensation for His suffering. (Ecumen-
ical Conference Report, I, 79.)
To show the place and power of the atonement in missions
I have time to give only one illustration from each of several
different mission fields.
In 1721 Hans Egede left ' Holland for Greenland. His idea
of mission methods is given in his own words : The first
care taken in the conversion of heathens is to remove out of
the way all obstacles which hinder their conversion and ren-
der them unfit to receive the Chri stian doctrine, before any-
thing can be successfully undertaken on their behalf ( Holy
Spirit and Missions, p. 122). For fifteen years this heroic
soul toiled amid the ice and snow without a single convert.
At the end of that time he gives up in despair, preaching the
last time from : I have labored in vain: I have spent my
strength for naught: yet
1ny
judgment is with the Lord and
y
work with my God l But in 1730 Frederick Beck went
to the same field. The natives travestied and ridiculed his
doctrine. In the meetings they pretended to be asleep and
snored. They would ask him to sing only that they might
drown the music with howls and drums. They pelted him
·with stones, broke into his hut and broke or stole his needed
things. They destroyed his boats, and when on the verge of
starvation would sell this brave Moravian no food. Awful
was their condition; dwarfed in body, they were still more
dwarfed in soul. Mothers licked their children as a cat does
her kittens, and they wallowed like swine in their filth. After
eight years, Beck was translating the Bible, and the natives
were curious to see how paper could hear, remember and
repeat the Word of God. He read them the story of the
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A Message from Missio s to tl e Modern Ministry
99
cr,oss. The miracle was wrou lght, and s
1
tony
hearts were
broken. Kayarnak came near and said to Beck with pathetic
face and voice: ''How is that? Tell
it
to me once more.
I,
too, want to be saved.'' Tears ran down
Beck's,
face to think
that after these years there was one inquirer. He told the
story again and again. Kayarnak came day after day. Soon
twenty came
with
him. On Easter, 1739', he, his
wife,
and
t\\·o
children were baptized. I-le became
a
preacher and
taught the missionary to depend, not upon logic but upon
the story of the cross. In 1747, twenty-five years after Egede
l1ad landed, the first chur ·ch was built for the three h·undred
members. The workers wrot
1
e at the tim·e: '' A stream of
life is now poured upon this people. As we speak or sing of
the suff 'erings of
Jesus, • . . . tears
of
love
and joy
roll
down their cheeks'' (''New Acts of the
Apostles,"
p. 215) ..
In 1828 in far
awa,y
Burma
Adoniram Judson
ha ,d been
laboring many years with but little success. He hears of the
1
Karens far i11 the interior. The only Karen man he could find
was
Kho-Thah-Byu,
a slave
fifty
years of age. As a youth
he had been dull, vicious, and brutal. As a man he had mur
dered
thir ·ty
men
by
his own
hand. J 1dson paid
his ransom
and took him to his o·wn home , His darkened mind was at
last lightened
by
the story of the cross. He was baptized
and went immediately to his people to preach. For twelve
years he made itinerating tours of from one week to six
months among the six hundr ,ed th
1
o·usan,d K.are ·ns.
Whol
1
e
vil
lages were converted, and today there are forty thousand
native Karen Christians as the result almost wholly of the
preaching of Kho-Thah -Byu, a result second only in mission
2.nnals to the work in the South Sea Islands. And this is
one
testimony
of
his
preacl1ing:
''He sought
in
every sermon
to
- bring into p,rominence the vicarious death of Christ. And the
result was that a larger number of converts understood justi
fication
by
faith than could be found among
an equal number
of
Christians
in a Christian land.''
..
/
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100 The Fundamentals
Rev. ~;i~gives this experience
at Banza Man
teke, in Africa. For four years he labored in vain, teaching
the people about God as Creator, that He was good and they
were sinners. He went home for a vacation, and while there,
was advised to preach the law when he went back. On re
turning he translated the commandments. They said the ten
commandments were very good and that they kept them all.
Thoroughly discouraged, he turned to God's Word and was
soon deeply impre ssed with Go preach the Gospel, not the
law or commandments, but
the Gospel
If he were -to preach
Christ crucified they would want to know who Je sus was.
So he began translating Luke and readi ng it to them. He got
on very well till he can1e to chapter
_6: 30,
':Qive to every
·man that asketh. Here he was puzzled, for the se men were -
notorious beggars. In order to have time to think he took
them back for a two weeks' review. After strugg ling over
what the com1nentaries said and what common sense would
say was the explanation of this verse, he decided it 1neant
just what
it
said He so read it to the natives, saying that
this was a hjgh standard of life but that he intended to prac
tice what he preached. 0£ course, they took him at his word,
as well as took nearly everything he had. One day he over
heard a conversation. One native said to another: I got this
of the white man. The other replied that he, too, was going
to ask for a certain article, whereupon a third said: No, buy
it. This must be God's man, for we never saw anyone like
him. At last they came to the story of the cross. He said:
You say you are not sinners? There is Jesus dying for you.
He never did anything wrong, but died for your sins and for
mine. After sevenJ::ears the battle was won by the story of
he cross, and there are now fifteen hundr ed Christians in the
church at Banza Manteke. ( New Acts of the Apostles, p.
273; Ecumenical Conference Report, II, 93.)
Thirty years ago, in the city of Mukden, with its 400,000
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•
-
•
•
A Message fr om Missions to the Mo dern Ministr .Y
101
....
p,opulation, ,
tl1ere
was a
litt ,Je
stre
1
t cha.pel.
When .
nothing
el.se would reach those s,to,lird Chiname ·n, the story of the
cross, the s·uff
erings
of
Je sus,
reached
them
wh
1
en
told by
ignora11t ''Old Wa ng," the converted confirmed opium smoker.
7 •
Thirty yeafs-ag,o
there ,N'ere on the roll
o,f
the Pr ,esbyterian
Ch.urch in Ma,n
1
c·huria three membe1·s; f'our years ago ·there
,v,ere in
Manchuria,
won
mostly
fron1 Mu kd
1
e11
as,
a center,
• ~~11D7-s~yen thpusa ?-d .~resbyterian Christians. Would you
know the secret of this remarkable work? ''In ord
1
er to gain
t~1e
Chinese
t
1
0
Christianity, all oth~r conc ,eivable methods
combined
,can11
ot
compare
in
e·fficiency
wi·th public
preaching.
. , , . But,
however
tl1e
vessel
of
th ,e p,rea,c·her
may
1
be
led in
all directions
by th ·e
flo,:ving
or
tJ1e ebbing
tide of
his
bearers' inclination s, though
it
move
ttp
and down on the
'\i\,aves of
a
thottsand various
subje ,cts,
and h
1
owever '
long
its
c,hain ,, the anchor must ever ·be fast immovably in what
is
l<nown a.s
the c1·oss
of
Christ.
The
mercy and
lo·ve of
1
God
as
reveal ·ed in
the
lif ,e
and
confirn1ed in the
death o.f
His
Son,
must
be the center around wl1ich all the
prea ,ching revolves,
and
on which .it is based. This is , the great central truth
on
wl1ich th ie
church in
Manchuria l1as
been
found .eel'' 1Ro 1ss,
''Missionary
Methods
in M'ancl1uria," p .
3.32).
Such is the
testimony
to th·e ·power of the cross
from
far
dis .tant and different witnes
1
ses. The conclusion drawn by
the S
1
cot ,ch pr ,ofessor and by th ,e mis sio·nary in China a,re one
and the same , ''The ·re is
nothing in tl1e
worl
1
d,,"
says Prof .
Denny, ''so
universally ·
i11t,elligi'ble: as the
cross'' (''Death o,f
Christ,"
p.
200). And Dr. Ross from China says: ''The
c1·oss
of Christ with
its
implied doctrines satisfies the soul of
the
Chinese .
It is
the intelli gent resp
1
onse of
l,ove
t,o the cry
of th
1
eir
1
dist1~essed
he.art''
(''Mi ,ssion .ary Methods in Man
·churia," p. 90) .. Nothing m
1
ore impr
1
essiv
1
ely, than the pre ,ach
ing of the cross to every creature and its a
1
cceptance b
y
them,
demonstrates to us s.o conclt1sively tha t ottr Gospel is an eternal
•
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··;
102
The undatnentals
Gospel; that the power and need of Christ's blood to save
never goes out of date.
This story of the cross wins its way among all peoples be-
cause
it
is the old, old story. It is older than Wesley, older:
than Calvin, Augustine, Paul, Moses, or Abraham. It is as
old as God, this story of the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world.
Did you ever hear of a Unitarian mission? You may
have. Then did you ever hear of a Unitarian mission having
a revival in a heathen land? I never did. And the reason is
they have no cross, no atonement to preach. When you stea l
the cross, you take the crown of missions. vVhen you despis eJ
the blood of Calvary, you will have strangled missions .
Somehow I feel that Peter often went back, at least in
thought, to that courtyard where he denied his Lord. And
while there he renewed his vows, asking God to help hitn
never again to deny or forsake his Saviour. And somehow
I feel that we who have been denying the power of the cross
in our preaching ought to go back to the places where we
have thus put our Master's sacrifice to an open shame, con-
fess our sin, and pron1ise there to be faithful in lifting up
the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.
II. THE HOLY SPIRIT AND MISSIONS
E7ery age has its own test of fidelity. In Old Testament
times the test was the unity of God. After Christ came, the
test was the Son of God as Divine Saviour and King. The
te~t for the Church today is its readiness to accept the Holy
Spirit as the Divine administrator of God's kingdom in this
world. Dr. Steele is right when he says: The conservator
of orthodoxy in every successive age is the Holy Spirit. And
if the Church is apostate today one place more than another,
it is in not enthroning the Holy Spirit. It is on mission fields
and in mission work that this is most nearly done, and there
God is honoring those that honor Him.
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A Message from M issio ns to tlie Modern Ministry
103
•
In the · first place, the Holy Spirit must be ·
entl1roned
as
administrator and director. ''His time is no less important
than His way.'' The Church never has been able to select the
proper time and pl,ace for labor. As we read the ''Acts of the
Apostles'' we feel that th ey are the '' Acts of the Holy Spirit.''
The for ,etokens of '
f
01·
1
eign missions , were when t11eHoly
Spirit
<lirected
Pl1ilip to the eunuch
and
Peter to Cornelius.
And
tl1e first act in the world drama of Christian conquest was
wl1en in
the church
at
Antioch ''the Holy Ghost said, Separate
me Ba rnaba s and Saul f or the work whereunto I have called
them. And no missionary of modern times l1as been success
fu l but what has gone out under a like ministration of the
l-Ioly Spirit as director.
Paul's being turned back from Asia and Bithynia by the
Holy Spirit, because h
1
ear ,ts
in Et.1rope were
ready
O'r
the
Gospel, can be parallel
1
ed over and over again in the adminis
tr·ation of t,11e
Spir ,it in mod
1
ern
missions.
When Judson went to India and landed at Calcutta, the
East India Company
forbade his
landing.
Feelir1g certain
he had been called to the mission field, he retired to the Isle
of France, and a year later went to Madras, where he was
also una ble to stay. The only pla ,ce open was Ra ,ngoon, ·
Burma, the last place he wished to go. But he went, led of
the Spirit, or ,
rather,
co,mpe,lled 0
1
f
the S,pirit, against ,
hisl
wishes
~.nd judgment. Burma w,as ready. Judson knew it not, but the
Spirit did, as testified to b y the Pe nteco stal work that fol
lowed.
I have no doubt
tnat
Philip'
1
s
and
Peter's surprise was
great when the eunuch and Cornelius were found so won
drously
prepared by the S,pirit to re,c,eive the message. , In
1820, when the ship ''Thaddeus'' furled sai l in Oahu harbor
with eighteen missionaries on board to begin the fight with
cannib ,alism and p,aganism in the Hawaiian Islands ,, what was
tl1eir surprise wh
1
en Obookiah, th
1
eir nati, ,e-bo,rn lad, who had
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104
The Fundamentals
gone ashore in a boat, returned bearing this news, "Oahu's
idols are no n1ore." And it was so. Before the missionaries
had landed, the Holy Spirit had moved the pagan king and
the priests to destroy all the heathen idols.
How God moves upon the hearts of whole communities
by the Holy Spirit in answer to the prayer of a devoted man l
On Nov. 7
1837,
Titus Coan had been laboring two years
at Hilo, Hawaiian Islands. Some ten thousand natives had
come in from the surrounding tribes to hear the Gospel. Their
Jjttle booths lined the shore, and some six thousand were
crowded into the crude church building at the hour of even
ing service. Suddenly the sea, moved by an unseen hand,
began to roar and the volcanic wave fell upon the people,
sweeping hundreds out to sea. An awful night that was
But mighty as was the sea, it was not to be compared with
the waves of the Spirit that rolled over that people. All the
next day, though the sea was giving up its dead one by one,
the meeting continued, and the kingdom of darkness gave up
its victims by the hundreds. So mighty was this work of the
Spirit that on the first Sunday in July, 1838, Mr. Coan, on that
afternoon, baptized 1,705 men, women and children, and some
2 400 communicants sat down at the Lord's table. During the
next three y2ars, the Spirit all the while moving upon the
people, 7,382 persons were received into the church at Hilo.
And during his thirty-five years of work there Mr. Coan
baptized with his own hands 11,960 converts.
Somehow these "new acts of the apostles" strangely stir
our hearts, even when we read about them. The very Spirit
seems to breathe through the record, as through the Book of
Acts
giving
it
life. What then must it be to be present in
such an atmosphere where such scenes are being enacted We
are not surprised that Bishop Foster says of the first prayer
meeting he attended at a mission station that he never saw
such manifest presence of God in a mid-week prayer meeting.
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A Message from Missions to the Modern Ministry
1,05
•
•
And his wonder , grew when told that this , was not an excep-
tio,n, b
1
ut
t.l1ey were
a,ll like that .
And ,B,is,h,op
1
Foss, ,
aft
1
er
attendin ,g
a camp-mee ,ting at
t,he· foot ,
of
t'he
H ·ima.laya Moun
tai :ns, writes: ' 'Never ,in my life, in any period of the old
time
cam .p-m ,eeting
·fervor, have I h
1
ear ,d
m
1
ore sermons,
a11d
exhortations, and prayers ,, ,and experi ,ences on the .subje ,ct of
·the gift of tl1e Holy Spirit,' (''Cleveland Missionary Con-
vention,'' p. 209) . ·
My
brethren, we have unlearned the
Ho1y
Spirit''.
These
words are true. He who was the inspirer of the first mission
aries; who again and again has awakened the Church from
her slumber an
1
d, pointed out the
duty
s.till n.ot
done ;
who is
today giving proofs
of
His
power
to
dire ,ct
and
'to ,obtai ·n re
sults tl1is
Holy
Spi ,rit w,e have
ignored,
·if not forgotten. We
'here at home have not realized, as have the miss ,ionarie ,s. that
the life tha ·t was . ''bo ,rn
fr
1
om .above'' must
al.so
be directed
f ro,m abov ,e; tl1a,t th ,e Church With a sup ·ernatur .al beginning
must have a s,up~rnatural lead ,ership; that as, Chr .ist was neces
sary, by
His a·tonement, t,o set men's fe,et in
the
way of
life,
so the Holy Spirit,
by
knowing
the
will of God, is necessary
to ke,ep men singing and triumphing in that way. From many
a missi
1
on field,
yielding
bounteous harv .ests, the
Holy · Spirit
is calling to us
here
at home to,yield to
Him the right
of way,
promising to
convict
men of sin, of
righteousness ,,
of judg
ment, and to take of the tl1ings of Christ and show them unto
-
.
us and u:nto many.
•
III. PRAYER AN ,D M'ISS ,IONS
Pr ,a,yer
precede ·,d Pent
1
ecost ...
Pr .ayer
p,r·e
ced1d,
God's ra .i.s
in;g up need
1
ed w·o,rl<:ers.
Prayer
preceded the
send.i,ng
O Ut of
tl1e fir ·st missionaries. 'Th ,e rcas ,on given for .appointing dea
cons was that the Apostle ,s migh ·t give themselves unto prayer.
Every man or won1an who has been mighty
1
0n the mission
field has , first bee11 mighty on his knees b,efore God. In
m.any ''a going apart, in scor ,es of ''all night'' ' seasons, again
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106
The undamentals
and again, in many a Gethsemane, he has fellowship with,
and catches the Spirit of, the Master. The spirit of the true
missionary is that of Neesima, of Japan, when he said: "We
must advance on our knees."
The nine children of Rev. and Mrs. John Scudder, of India,
have all given their lives to missionary service in that land
seven sons and two daughters. This one family has given a
total of five hundred and thirty years of continuous mission
ary service for India. The only explanation is that given by
Mr. Scudder: "The children were literally prayed into the
kingdom by their mother." She was accustomed to spend the
birthday of each child in all-day prayer for him.
There is Eliza Agnew, forty -three years a missionary in
Oodooville, Ceylon. During all that time she never once re
turned to England,' never once took a vacation. "I have no
time," she said. She is called ''the mother of a thousand
daughters," having taught the daughters and grand-daughters
of her first pupils. When she died it was found of the thou
sand girls who had gone entirely through the school, not one
returned to her home a heathen Like her Saviour, she could
say: "Of all those whom thou .h~st given me, I have lost
none." And out of that one school alone, while under Miss
Agnew's care, over six hundred girls went to carry the Gospel
light to the zenana homes of India. The secret? She spept
literally hours every day praying for the girls by name "I
know My sheep by name. They hear My voice and follow
Me."
· In Japan, from April, 1900, to May, 1902, there was con
tinuous, uniteq. prayer by Christians throughout the king
dom. In May, 1902, the revival broke out, and during the
year to the Church of forty thousand native Christians there
were added twenty-seven thousand converts in answer to that
prayer. In answer to prayer by the China Inland Mission,
Dr. Schofield, after - winning seventy-five .hundred dollars in
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Message from Missions to the Modern Ministry 107
prizes for scholarships in English colleges, gave himself to
medical work in China. He labored only three years before
he was "called up higher;" but during that time his wife tells
us she often heard him praying in his study that God would
thrust out of the English universities young 111en o work in
China. His early death was lamented and not under stood.
Christ died at thirty-three, after only thr ee years of toil and
prayer : One year after Dr. Schofield's deat h the "Cambridge
seven" went forth. Before they went to China they made a
tour of Engl ish and Scotch colleges, and stirr ed the student
life of all Great Britain for God and missions. Today one
is bishop of West China, one is assistant superintendent of
the China Inland Mission, one a pioneer missionary to Tibet,
and all the others are useful workers.
Dr. Gordon's Church, of Boston, was giving five thousand
dollars annually to missions. One day Dr. Gordon said in
the pulpit: "It is not enough; let us still use all our plans
and agencies that have been successful in the past. But in ad
dition, in the Sunday School , in the Young People's Society of
Chri stian Endeavor, in missionary organizations, at the family
altar, in secret, in the public service , let us pray that God will
enable us to do more gen erously for thi s great cause." Result:
the next year th ey gave over ten thousand dollar s to missions,
the Chri stian Endeavor alone giving sixtee n hundred dollars
Do we stop often to think th at one of the mightiest mis
sionary org anizati ons of our day has been prayed into being?
Listen to the story:
J. Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission,
was a child given in answer to a father's prayer for a son to
be given him who might evangelize China's million s. This
son tells us that when a young man, "God said to me, 'My
child, I am going to evange lize Inland China, and if you would
like to walk with Me, I will do it throu gh you.' " While still
in England he was led to believe in the limitl ess possibilities
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108
The undamentals
of prayer. He tells us he said to himself: "When I get to
China my only claim will be on God. How important,
therefore, to learn before leaving England to move ~an
through God by prayer alone" ("China Inland Mission," p.
66). The decision to open the mission is made. For months
Hudson Taylor has been bearing the burden of unevangelized
China. But the far greater burden is that he can not trust
and pray for God to raise up the workers for China and sup
port them. It seems his life .will go out under the fearful
strain . He goes to Brighton by the sea for relief. There on
the beach, on a bright Sunday morning in June, we see him
fully trusting God, and the burden lifts. Then it was that
on the margin of his Bible he made a little record, which
ought to be forever memorable in the annals of missions:
"Prayed for twenty-four willing, skillf ul laborers at Brighton,
June 25,
1865.
The conflict was all ended. Peace and glad
ness filled my soul" ( "China Inland Mission," p. 224). This
number and more sailed to China.
In the autumn of 1881, at Wu Chang, the China Inland
missionaries gathered to meet Hudson Taylor. Fur1ds were
low. Five years had passed since the Chefu Convention,
which opened every province to the missionary, and every
province had been entered by this heroic band. They said:
"God has opened the doors to once-sealed lands; why are
laborers so few?" The answer came: "You have been definite
in prayer for doors to open; why not be definite in prayer
for workers to enter them?" Conscious of failure, this little
company sits down, each one with pencil and paper. They
go over the eleven provinces of Inland China, asking what
God's work must have. Twenty-eight women and forty-two
men, just seventy in all There they are, a little band, poor,
uninfluential, hardly known outside of Eng land, thougli
known, we believe, to 'God and all His angels on high. Whole
working force after fifteen years' work now less than a hun-
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Message from Missions to the Modern Ministry
109
dred. How could they ask for seventy? But here was the
need. God had taught them, they fully believed, to pray as
they ought. They dared not ask for less and still believe in
God, the Father Almighty. They prayed for seventy, also for
large re-enforcements for all the evangelical societies. But
they could not r,ightly care for so many in one season, so they
asked that they be sent during 1882, 1883, 1884.
They were
later led to pray that God would lead some of His wealthy
stewards to make room for a large blessing for himself and
family by giving liberally of his substance for this special ob
ject. One said: Would it not be delightful if three years
hence all now here could gather and give thanks when the last
of the seventy shall have reached China? Clearly that could
not be. Why not have the thanksgiving tonight in which
we may all unite? one said; and it was so, they rejoicing
over what they had taken of God by faith. Before the close
of the time seventy -six workers were on the field, and in
February, 1882,
the Berger family, of England, gave three
thou sand pounds - fifteen thousand dollars. Five thousand
dollar s for father, five thousand for mother, one thousand
for Mary, one thousand for Rosie, one thou sand for Bertie,
one thousand for Amy, one thousand for Henry. Exceeding
abundantly above all that ye ask or think.
Again, in Noven1ber,
1887,
Mr. Taylor and others met
at N anking to consider the need. They were led to ask for
one hundred missionaries and ten thousand pounds additional
during
1888.
Further led to ask that the money might come
in large sums, that their clerical force might not be taxed in
acknowledging it
1
Result s, one hundred new missionaries
came during
1888,
and not $50,000, but $55,000 additional in
eleven separate gifts, the smalle st being $2,500, and the larges t
$12,500.
This mission stands there today as an example of
work begun in prayer, relying on prayer entirely for men
and means. We may say what we please about visionary
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110
The undamentals
schemes, but here are visible fruits. Think of this story Not
back in apostolic times, but in this bu sy, crowding, material
istic, twentieth century
Prayer is the mightiest power in our hands today. 'rs
it not a great sin that we do not use this talent of all talents?
What blessings we are withholding from ourselves, the
Church, and missions by not praying If, like Pastor Gess
ner, we could learn to "ring the prayer bell rather than the
beggar's bell," we might have his success-one hundred mis
sionaries put into the field who gathered thirty thousand con
verts before his death at sixty-three-and be worthy of his
epitaph; "He prayed mission stations into being and mis
sionaries into faith; he prayed to open the hearts of the rich,
and gold from the most distant land s." But prayer is a costly
exercise, and this possibly is why so few people dare pray
really in earnest. If you pray earne stly a year for China, you
will feel you ought to go. If your Church prays earnestly
a year for China, she will double her missionary offering.
If at the family altar a father and mother plead earnestly for
India or Africa, God will ask a son or daughter of them for
far-away service. If we pledge the price we can claim the
power. The picture of my boyhood was that of
Atlas holding the world on his shoulders; but the picture
for boy and girl, for man and woman, for minister and
1nissionary today, is Christ bearing the world upon His heart.
The world with Atlas' shoulder under it we know is a
myth,
but the world with Christ's heart under it is the mightiest
reality of the ages.
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•
•
• •
CHAPTER IX
EDDYISM, COMMONLY CALLED CHRIS ,TIAN
SCIEN ,CE
BY. REV. MAURICE
E.
WILSON, D. D
1
.
DAYTON,
1
0HIO
•
1
0ne of the keenest observers of America has made the
remark that
the
reason
so
many new isms
are
constantly
springing up is because the old Gospel is so hard to live.
Peo ,ple are looking for a comfortable life here, and an easy
way to heaven. They are scanning earth and sky for a royal
road. The fight with sin which the Gospel demands is a fierce
and
bitter
fight;
and many
men
and women
are anxious,y
searching for a way of escape, desiring to be carried to the
skies on flowery beds of ease.
This ,desire lies at
the
ba,sis
1
of Eddyism. Its fundamental
principle is that sin and sickness have no real existence. They
may be banished by a process of thought. There is no mat
ter;
mind
is
everything.
And, in
proportion
to the
progress
of the individual in th.is creed, all disagr ,eeable and unpleas-
ant things vanish.
Mrs. Eddy s basic propositions are four in number, and
are thus
expressed in her own words: First,
God
is all
in
all. Second, God is good, good
is
mind. Third,
Spirit, be
ing all, nothing is matter. Fourth, Life, God, omnipotent
good, deny death, evil, sin,. disease. Disease, sin,
evil,
death,
deny good, omnipotent God, Life (p. 113, Science and
Health ).* Unconscious of the absurdity of the thing, she
placidly
tells us that
since
these statements may be read back-
•
*NoTE: All
quo
1
tations from
S
1
cience an
1
d
Health
in
this article
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112
The undamentals
ward as well as forward, this is a proof that they are true
"The Divine metaphysics proves the rule b)'
inversion." So far as their value goes, these four propositions
might just as well be read perpendicularly, or obliquely. And
by the same method of argument, it would be easy to prove
that angels, archangels, cherubim and seraphim, are butter
flies, lizards, guinea pigs and horses.
It is not necessary in this article to review Mrs.
Eddy's
life or discuss her personality. It is interesting as the study
of an eccentric character, but the personal aspect of this sub
ject is a minor aspect.
In seeking for the exact teachings of this ism, we natur
ally turn to the fountain and source of it all, the text ':"ook,
'·Science and Health." This book is to Eddyism all that
Blackstone is to the lawyer, or the pharmacopoeia to the phy
sician-and a good deal more,-for never did a body of peo
ple accept the utterances and decrees of a sup~rior more slav
ishly than do the disciples of this cult accept those of its
founder.
It is out of the question, of course, to consider
ll
the
teachings or positions of "Science and Health", and other
writings of Mrs. Eddy. That would require more space than
THE FUNDAMENTALS" can give to the subject. To examine
only a few of its underlying principles will be sufficient. If
these claims can be shown to be contrary to the Word of
God and to the experience arid common sense of mankind, the
whole thing must be rejected as unworthy of confidence. Not
only this, but it should be opposed and aggressively combatted
as a pestiferous error.
Now, "Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures"
treats of such subjects as Prayer , Marriage, Atonement and
Eucharist, Animal Magnetism, Science, Theology, Medicine,
Physiology, Creation, and Spiritualism . And these chapters
are as utterly destitute of logical arrangement, or natural se-
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Eddyism, Commonly Called Christian Science
113
quence, as i they had been shaken up in a bag and drawn
out by a blind man.
Rather than offend the logical sense of the reader, I shall
offend the book itself, and selecting a few of these topics
consider them in their proper order.
GOD
What does Mrs. Eddy teach concerning God? Well, for
one thing, that God is not a person. He is Principle ; and
of the same impersonal character as the principle of mathe
matics.'' That is her own analogy- the principle of mathe
matics. This statement is iterated and re-iterated with in
tense positiveness. God, n1oreover, is the only Principle.
Mrs. Eddy denies that she is a pantheist. This at first
is most astounding; but when we turn to her definition of
pantheism we understand her denial. Pantheism, she tells us,
is a belief in the intelligence of matter (p.
129,
Science
and Health ). Since waters began to run, the world never
heard so wonderful a definition of pantheism. Even Spinoza
himself was not a pantheist according to this interpretation
of the word. But inasmuch as in Eddyism there is no
matter , and mind is everything,., and there is no mind
but God , sensible people can reach only one conclusion. We
have here out and out pantheism.
The author tells us, There is but one I or Us. But
one I or
Us
Mrs. Eddy declares that Christian Science
completely cleansed her mind of all such trivial things as
grammar. It certainly looks so. Again, we are told that
God is the only Ego.
Perhaps the adherents of this cult believe its founder when
she denies that she is a pantheist, but nobody else believes
her. The God of Eddyism is hopelessly entangled in the
meshes of His own creation. He is imprisoned as the sap
is imprisoned in the tree.
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114
The Fundamentals
PRAYER
Consequently, the teachings of Science and Health pre
clude all need and all possibility of prayer. If God is only
Principle , one might as well pray to the principle of mathe-
1natics , or to chemical affinity, or to the Constitution of the
United States.
There is an entire chapter devoted to Prayer . But it
is not Christian prayer at all. Mrs. Eddy's prayer is vir
tually a soliloquy, or an attempt at auto-suggestion. And this
kind of prayer, we are told, will be answered, inasmuch as
we shall put our desir es into practice.
It may be worth while to note a few choice morsels from
this chapter. ''Desire is prayer, and then by way of a fling
at the Christians of the world, we are informed that the
habit of pleading with Divine Mind, as one pleads with a hu
man being, perpetuates the belief in God as humanly circum
scribed. Is that a fact, or a falsehood? Do Christian men
and women believe as they approach their heavenly Father
that He is humanly circumscribed ? Does such a thought
ever occur to any of us who have lived in any true sense a
life of prayer?
Later we con1e upon the statement, that prayer, as under
stood by the Christian people of the last 1900 years,
implies
the vain supposition that we have nothing to do but ask par-
don, and that afterwards iue shall be free to repeat the of-
fence.
I ask, again, is that a
fact
or a
falsehood.P
The
author either knew that statemen t to be false, or she did not.
If she knew, then she meant to vilify the godly men and
women who for all these generations have lifted up holy
hands of prayer in the name of Christ their Lord. If she
did not know, then it is evident that her chapter on prayer is
a tissue of misrepresentations woven out of ignorance, and
has as little value as-the remainder of the book.
There is no room within the confines of Eddyism for the
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Eddyism, Commonly Called Christian Science''
115
prayer, God be merciful to me a sinner -a prayer which,
our Lord Himself tells us, sent the publican down from the
temple forgiven and justified. There is no place for it be
cause we are distinctly told that principle does not pardon.
She is against audible prayer , as she calls it. And
having endlessly .revised and expurgated, without sense and
without conscience, her so-called Divine Revelation, she in
sists that we, who are not her disciples, worship a corporeal
Jehovah.
She found it impossible to keep her hands off even the
Lord's Prayer. Every Sabbath in every one of her congre
gations her version of the Lord's Prayer is read aloud, sen
tence
by
sentence alternately, with that version which we
owe to Jesus Christ. The audience, led
by
one of the read
ers, recites the Christian version; and the other reader re
cites Mrs. Eddy's lingo, in which she addresses God as Our
Father-Mother God, all hannonious (p. 16, Science and
Health ). As another has said, the alternating s·entences pro
duce a well-marked, almost physical nausea, as if one had
suddenly been plunged into foul air. The difficulty is to sit
still; to resist the longing to get away, out into the street
anywhere to cleanse the mind of these sacrilegious puerili
ties. I can corroborate this from experience.
As Eddyi sm is distinctly un-Christian in its views of God,
so is it uD-Christian in its views of prayer.
SIN AND ATONEMENT
Then there is the great fact of sin. Concerning this sub
ject,
too,
Mrs. Eddy's teaching is pantheistic. It mistakes
the whole purpose of Christ's coming into the world. The
Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was
lost. What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world,
and lose his own soul? Thou shalt call His name Jesus,
for He shall save His people from thetr sins. We very well
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116
The
Fundarnentals
•
know that the greatest impediment to man's progress is not
sickness, but sin.
And yet in the text-book of Eddyism we are told that
"The only reality of sin is the awful fact that it seems real
to human belief, until God strips off its disguise." Sin
is an illusion, we are informed. And so this scheme seeks
to
save the sinner by convincing him that he is ot a sinner
-unless
he believes himself to be Which is another ear
mark
of
pantheism. Pantheism necessarily excludes the
possibility of sin. And this modern high-priestess
of
60,000
American people does the same. If our reason be God's rea
son, our intelligence God's intelligence, our activity God's ac
tivity, of course we cannot ·sin. If God is Mind, and man is
"the full expression of Mind" (as "Science and Health" says),
there is nothing in us which is not God. God is God in the
Apostle John or in the Emperor Nero, in Phillips Brooks or
John Wilkes Booth. "God is all in all. God is good. There
fore all is good." Therefore nothing is evil
Now, this is not 111erelyuntrue, but it is pernicious in the
highest degree. This is ex.actly the kind of doctrine which
ill-
balanced people-n1orally ill-balanced, mean-will be only
too pleased to welcome. For one person who seriously per
suades himself that his headache is not a real headache, you
may find twenty only too happy to persuade then1selves that
their sins are ot real sins. have but one name for teaching
·which denies
sin
and declar es vice to be an illusion: it is
neither more nor less than 111oral poison. Let us face facts.
We all should like to know that sin is only a bad dream, as was
taught by Brahmanism, and which we shall find to have been
a dream when we awake. Men would give almost anything
to be delivered from the sense of sin as a dread reality,
for it makes them uncomfortable; it interferes with their
peace of mind. To be delivered from the acute discomfort
of
shame, remorse, self-contempt, were surely more desirable
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•
Eddyism, Coninionly Called ''Christian Science)' 117
for all men of lofty character
than
to
be cured of
any gnaw
ing ulcer that eats into the flesh. And to be so delivered in
the
name
of
religion to
be
told
that
since
all is
God,
nothing
,can be evil off 'ers
a tren1endous
bribe a tremendous, but
most unholy bribe. To accept this ,doctrine is to head straight
f'or moral
1
disaster. The higher evolution of ' our race consists
in
man's growing sensitiveness to the distinction between good
\
and evil, and anyt .hing calcul ,ated to du,ll that sensitiveness to
wipe
o·ut
that
distinctio ,n,
is high
treason
against
humanity~
To,
pretend t O so1ve tl1is problem of evil by denying its existence, ,
to teach ·that ''there is no will that is n,ot God,s will,,' so that
whatever ·the indiv idual
1
doe.s is · God's doing, is far worse than
.fo
1
1ly, or , one of the a'berra ,t:ions of an, eccent .r'ic cult; it is a
crime against the, m
1
oral universe"
A,s to
the
.Ato1 ,iem ent , or the relation ,o,f Ch :rist to
1
t.l1e f'ac,t
1
0,f
sin,
Ed
1
d.yism
favors us 'With the
,amazin .g stat ,eme,n't th,at
,,~T,he
Atonement
is the
e,x'e,mplification,
1
f ' man's
iinity
with
God·' The ide ,a
1
0,f Cl1rist giving His life a,s
''a r,atisom ,
,f 1or
tnany'', , of b,,eing
''ma,d'e S'in f 'o
r
us,',,
tl1oug·h He '''knew n.o sin,''
i:s entirel ,y foreign to Mrs ,, .Edd .y's scheme. There is, no sin to
be
1
atoned for, and no
ne,rd
for '
la ransom t·o
be pai'd.,
Th
1
en, as
if
it were not eno
1
ugh
to de.ny
the real.ity
of sin
and the aton ,ement, Eddyism indulges in what to the Christian
is blasphemy. For example, ''The tr11e Logos , is demonstra
bly Christian Science'' (p. 134, ' 'Science and He alth'')
1
• If
that be so, then we might read the first verse of the
1
Gospel
acco ·rding to John in this way: ''In the begin11ingwas Christ
ian Science, and Christian Science was with
1
G
1
od, and Christ- .
ian
Sci~nce was
Go,d. All thin ,gs were n1ade
by
1
Christian
Science,
and without Christian Science
was not
anything made
that was made." We are also told that the C,omf o-rter~ the
Holy Spirit, is Christian Science
And
Mrs. Eddy , herself
is also the WordJ and the Comforter, and the Second Advent,
and tne Won1a1i
in
the
Su1i,.
a.nd the
Last
Day.
•
•
•
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118
.The Fundamentals
A comical side of this presents itself to us in the claim
that the prophet Elijah was Christian Science; so were the
river
Euphrates,
and the river
Hidd ekel)
and the
N ew Jerusa-
lem ( See Glossary.)
"T HE LORD'S SU PPER"
As related to this whole subject of sin and atonement
treated in this sacrilegious mann er, we should consider for a
moment her parody of the Lord's supper. She tells us that
the passover which Je sus ate with His disciples the night
before His death "was a mournful occasion, a sad supper";
and that it "closed forever Jesu s' rituali sm, or concessions to
matter." What a contrast between our Lord's last supper
and His last spiritual break£ ast with His disciples in the
bright morning hours, at the joyful meeting on the shore of
the Galilean Sea "This spiritual meeting with our Lord in
the dawn of a new light, is the morning meal which Christian
Scien tists commemorate" (pp. 32-35, "S cience and H ealth").
"Thus does Eddyism heap its insult s upon the sacrament
itself-the very heart and citadel of Christian worship. Jesus
says, 'This do in remembrance of Me.' And Mrs. Eddy and
her easy victims immediately set about doing something else.
They must not even think of blood or pain or death, for these
all are illusions of mortal mind. They will have nothing
to do with the Lord' s supper, becau se it is 'a mourn ful occa
sion.' Apd they mu st always be comfo rtable, able to for get
sin and its consequences 'The less said of them, the bet ter .'
'That is her desperate advice. 'I lay down My lif e for the
sheep,' said Jesu s Chri st, the Son of God. It was a mistake
to dwell upon that. The agony in the Garden, the scourging,
the torture of the crucifixion, all were errors of sinful sense "
So it is better, Eddyism thinks, to forget this "sad sup
per, taken at the close of day • . . with shadows falling
around" (p. 32, "Science and Health"), and have a "last spir-
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Eddyism, Commonly
Called
·Christian
Science) 119
itua·1 bre.akfas ·t . . . in
the
b,right mornin ,g hours'' (p.
3·4,
''Science and Health'' '). No
cross, no
passion, and
a
re.sur
r,ecti·on, not from the dead, but from sleep, or
la
swoon
I
'The so-cal:led
''Co
1
mmunion
.Servi ,c·e''
us ,ed
to be
h
1
el,d on .c e
a year; but in 1908
it
was abolished from the Mo ,ther Church
in Boston, because the
1
crowd was
inconveni ,ent. That was
the reason ass .igned, 'but in her ord ,er Mr ·s.
Eddy
de,cr,eed:
''There shall be no mo,re communion season in the Mother
Church that has blossomed
into . spiritual
beauty, communion
univer ·sal .and
Divine. ' Thus
t'l1is ''d ,ea·d rite, a.s sh·e c.alle :d
jt, was done away with.
''R .ESURRECTION''
It is important to note what Mrs.
Eddy
has to say about
the
resurrection
of
.Jesus
Christ.
''The
lonely
precincts of th ,e
tomb gave J ,es.i1s a refuge ro,m His ·fo
1
es,',. where ''He met
and mastered, . on the basis of Christian Science, all the claims '
of medicine, s.urgery and hygiene'' (p. 44,
'·Science and
Healtl1''). . ''But it ·was not a supernatura .l .act ·' (p. 34,
''Science and Health'').
''His disciples believed Jesus
dead
while He was hidden in the sepulchre; whereas He was alive,
demo
1
nst.r·ating
within t.he narr ·ow tomb· the
po ·W
er
of
Sp.iri.t
to
over-rule mo
1
rtal, materia .l sense'' . (
p.
34, '' Science ,and
Health''). Wl1en ''Jesus' students • . . saw Him after
His crttcifixi ·on,''
tl1,ey
''learned that He ha
1
d no·t died''
1
·(p , 4·6,
''Science and
Health'').
Mrs. Ed dy
speaks
of
His
c
1
ondition
''after what seemed
to
be death,'' and she quotes Paul in this
. f,ashion, ''we we:re reconciled to God
by the. ( s,eeming)
death
of His Son'' (p. 46, '''Science an
1
d Health' '').
Now the public.;does not know all this, or any small part
-of it, inde,ed. N,o foll,ower of
Mrs. Eddy,
s,o far as, I have
discovered, ever mentions these who1esale
an1
,outrageous de
nials of New
Testamen ·t
truth. They never
refer
t
1
0 these
things either
on the platfo1·m
or
in
their
news,p,ap
1
er ,corre-
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120
The Fundamentals
spondence. Hence, until one .goes to "Science and Health",
to
read and find out for himself, he is very apt to be deceived
by
the brazen pretensions of Mrs. Eddy to a place amo~g
Christian teachers.
"HEALING"
Next we are to consider the
matt er of healing. It
is the
custom
o
Mother Eddy's followers to point to the wonderful
cures that have been effected by then1selves and their co
religionists. The aim of the healer is to persuade the pa-
tient that he is not sick that he has no disease. If
the case is
a
cancer he is told that the inflammation in the flesh is caused
by mortal 1nind; the seat of the trouble is in the thought, the
belief.
A man drinks poison and dies; but it is not the poison
that kills him; vicious belief, or mortal mind, sends him to
bis long home. If he only had been able to convince himself
that the poison was pure, clear spring water, it would nave
done him no injury.*
The infant when he utters the first wail has an "inherited"
belief in pain The horse when left standing without his
blanket on a bitter winter day takes cold because there is a
sort of universal horse conviction that this will happen.
t
And
this is called "science" Of course, it is as unscientific as
anything ever foisted upon the attention of the world-a mere
jumble of unlearned assumptions without a scintilla of proof.
It is the philosophy of idealism gone mad.
*"If
a dose of poison is swallowed through mistake, and the
patient dies, even though physician and patient are expecting
favorable results, does human belief, you ask, cause this death?
Even so; and as directly as if the poison had been intentionally
taken" (p. 177, "Science and Health").
t"You can even educate a healthy horse so far in physiology
that he will take cold without his blanket; whereas the wild
animal left to his instincts, sniffs the wind with delight. The
epizootic is a humanly evolved ailment, which a wild horse might
never have" (p. 179 "Science and Health").
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•
Eddyism, Commonly Called Christian Scienc ,e,, 121
•
....
This does not mean that the followers of Mrs.
Eddy
do
not effect
1
cures. They do.
But ju .st
as astonishing
cures,
and
a
gre ,at
many
more of
them,
,are e·:ff
cted
by
c ·atholic
~hrines all over the world at .Lourdes, for
1
example-artd by
re]ics such as those of St. Anne in New Yor1<:City. Francis
Schlatt rer, in Denver a few years ago, and Alexander Dowie,
in
Chicago, probably
far
surpassed
in this
respect any
single
fo
1
]Jower of Mrs. Eddy who ,
ever ·
coped with the ills that
flesh
is, hei.r to not even excep ,ting the founder of the sect h
erself.
And yet none of these other healers ever thought
.oi
denying
the facts of the material world.
The claims of Eddyism to cure organic diseases break
down under the most elementary rules of criticism. · That
it
does cure
functional diseases,
all will admit,
for
it
is simply
a matter of s.uggestion.
It
never has cured, and never will
cure, any diseases, except those which have
been
cured
ag~in
and again
by
mental therapeutics. And from the works of
healing in the temples o·f Aesculapius down to the present
time, mankind has used, for better or wo,rse, mental
thera
peutics.
We often
wonder why Mrs. Eddy and her followers are
so sure that God is a physician, but are unwilling to trust Him
•
as
a
surgeon. She is ready to
turn
over into His hands
every
case of stomach trouble or
liver
complaint; but for a broken
leg or a dislocated shoulder, she wants a surgeo ,n I
I
make bold to repeat that Eddyism has not
one
iota
of evi
dence
to support its theory of healing; no evidenceJ as an ..
other
has said, b ,ut would be thrown out of the lowest police
court. Its cures differ neither in character nor in numbers
- from those effected by others, as remarked above. And all
.. may be accounted
for
by the well-known fact of
the
influ ...
ence of mind over mind, and of mind over body.
Professor Carpenter, the English physiologist, speaking
•
•
•
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122
The Fundamentals
of what is known as expectant attention,'' says: There is
scarcely
a
malady in which amendment has not been produced
by practices which can have had no other effect than to direct
the attention of the sufferer to the parts, and to keep alive his ·
confident expectation of a cure. But, as everybody knows,
this method of operation will not cure diseased tissues, set
broken bones, or heal structural derangement.
Neither
will
it cure a toothache permanently, as the follow
ers of Mrs. Eddy themselves prove by their patronage of the
dentist. When one discovers, as
I have more than once,
a
de
vout follower of Mrs. Eddy re sting unea sily in a dentist's
chair, he naturally asks himself if the nerves in the teeth are
the only nerves that can cause pain?
Some years ago Mrs. Eddy herself had a tooth removed
under local anaesthesia. It cau sed her theories to be held up
to ridicule in a good many quarters.
In
her reply she gave
out this ingenious explanation: that the dentist's belief in the
n1eans he employed was a mental force which combined with
her own-exerted in a different direction-and produced a
painles 's operation as
a
logical, mathematical RESULTANT OF
FORCES ( Brooklyn Eag le Library, 1901).
Eddyism, therefore, denies evident facts, and claims for
facts what universal exper ience proves to be false. Its ad
vocates themselves give the lie to their creed every day of
their lives by treating their bodie s as if they were real. They
eat and drink, and with the chan ge of seasons they change the
weight of their apparel. Mrs. Eddy declares that Man has
a sen.sationless body
(p. 280,
Science and Health ). But
yet
one should not tarry in the storm
if
the body
is
freezing'
(p. 329, Science and Health ). Why not? If the body is
sensationless, it will not be affected in the least by the de
grees .of Fahrenheit, either up or down. Anyway, Mrs. ddy
insists that there is neither heat nor cold. I--Ieat and cold are
products of mind.
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Eddyism, Commonly Called Christian Science
123
ITS CRITICS
Of course, every one who denounces "Science and Health"
is immediately reminded by the erudite members of this cult
that he
does not understand
the book; and that he will for
ever be incapable of understanding its profundities until he
becomes a disc·iple. His mental capacity will have to be en
larged before he can appreciate the fine distinctions to be
found in the learned writings of this lady. It is amusing. A
man, like General Horatio
C.
King, for example, may be col
lege bred; may have spent years in the practice of the legal
profession, and other years as a newspaper editor, and still
others as an author; he may have traveled extensively, and
been a student of the Bible all his life; but if he criticises
"Science and Health", it is because he cannot understand its
philosophy. A man may be acquaint ed with the entire his
tory of thought from Thales to Hegel, he may be able to read
J{ant's "Critique" with some degree of plea?ure; he may have
spent years in the company of Spinoza, Descartes, Locke,
Leibniti, and other thinkers, but he is out of court as a critic
unless he acknowledges the vast superiority of Mrs. Eddy.
But
i
one is willing to make this acknowledgement-even
though he be ignorant as night of all things else-he is at
once entitled to a place among the wise men
NUMBERS
The pity of it all is that the jargon of "Science and
Health", and its kindred publications, is accepted as Gospel
by over 60,000 people in this enlightened land of ours.
It is well known that Eddyism claims anywhere from one
to three millions in America. The official .figures as given by
Dr. Carroll in the last religious census are
85,7I7.
But many
of these even "are counted as members of the Mother Church
in Boston, and also member s of the branch churches through
out the world t Dr. Carroll's estimate is that there are at
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124
The undamentals
least 20,000 duplications-which would leave a grand total
for the last census of about 65 000 members. The official
board
has
now for several years declined to give any reports
to
the public, which may mean that the crest of the wave was
reached some time ago, and the movement has begun to re
cede.
But even though the numbers were as great as claimed,
this would prove nothing as to the truth of Mrs. Eddy's
teachings. In India there are millions who worship the
Ganges, and other millions who worship cows-and the
H .indu
mind is second to none in the world in its metaphysical apti
tudes. It is sad to think that a single man or woman should
be misled by Joe Smith, Alexander Dowie, or Mary Baker
Eddy.
DISHONESTIES
But these false claims are not the only dishonesties per
petrated by Eddyism. The pages of Sc;ence and Health
teem with them.
The press agents of Mrs. Eddy will tell you that unless
preaching is accompanied by signs of healing the sick, one has
no proof that he is presenting the Gospel as the Master said
it should be. * But it is a dangerous thing to prove too much.
,
If healing the sick is a necessary adjunct to presenting the
Gospel, so is the po~er to speak with tongues, take
up·
serpents , drink any deadly thin g , cleanse the lepers , and
raise the dead. It looks, ther e£ore, as if, according to their
own argument, all the lecturers and press agents and publish
ers and readers
of Eddyism should immediately retire and
cease their propaganda.
How many dead have they rai sed in any community, from
Boston down to the smalle st town in which they have estab
lished themselves? One has a feeling that it would not be
Lloyd B. Coate.
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•
Eddyisni, ,
,Comnionly
Called Ch,,.istian Scie1tce ~ 125
difficult to give the figures. H ,ow rn.any lepers have they
cleansed? There are plenty of opportunities in the world to
try
their hand at this. Let some
0
1
£
them
repair
to
Molokai,
for examp1e, and get to work. Or does Eddyism enable any
of its most ardent devotees to handle serpents that have p
1
oison
in their fangs? Or to drink carbolic acid, just by way of
proof? Or to speak with foreign tongues, without a course of
study?
How
many
languages did
Mrs. Eddy speak? It looks
as if she
1
could
not speak
one with
any
very great
degree
of
accuracy.
But then she told the wor]d that her Divine revelations
had purged her mind of all
such
trifles as Latin and Greek
and Heb
1
rew. She certain]y should not have been so reckless
,vi.th her ''new tongues,'
1
'
since, according ·to her own tea ,ching ·
Jesus meant all His disciples to possess and use them.
Take
ano ,ther
example of dishonest treatment of the
Word
of God. In ''Science and Health'' (p. 75 , after quoting the
words of our Lord to His discip il,es, "
1
0u ·r friend Lazarus
sleepeth; but I
go that
I
may
awake him
ou·t
of sleep,' '' Mrs.
Eddy declares that ''He restored Lazarus
by
the understanding
tl1at
he had
never
died," and this
in spite of
tl1e fact that
in the th·ird verse below
tl1at
in
w·hich
Christ uses the figure
of sleep
discovering
that the
disciples
did
not
understand
He ''said unto them
plainly,
Lazarus is .dead.''
Again, ''the inj un cti ,on, 'Believe . . • and thou shalt be
saved ' demands self-reliant trustworthiness.'' Every student
1
0f the B,ible
l{nows that these
are the words
of Pau1 to
the
Philippian jailer, an
1
d that he says, ''Believe on the Lord
•
Jesus Christ,
and thou
shalt be saved.'' The Apostle is en-
,
oining the
very opposite of ''self-reliant trustworthiness.''
He
is showing'
to the trembling jailer that Jesus is tl1e One upon
whon1 he must rely
No doubt many of her disciples who were formerly mem
bers of the evangelical churches think t·hey s,till have the same
Saviour as of old. But
it
was her boas ,t that she had ''taken
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126
The undamentals
away their Lord." In a letter to Judge Septimius
J.
Hanna,
the founder of Eddyism says: "I have marveled at the press
and pulpit's patience with me, when have taken away their
Lord."
Suppose a minister of the Gospel were to declare that "the
true Christ is Calvinism", or that "Arminianism is the Holy
Spirit", or that "Lutheranism lights the fires of the Holy
Ghost", how long would it take the public to discover that such
a man was unworthy of a place among Christian teachers?
Yet this woman has gone on perpetrating blasphemies of this
sort year after year. And when she and her followers are
criticised and their staten1ents denounced, some people are hor-
rified and talk about persecution.
ABSURDITIES
In conclusion, let us notice two or three specimen absurdi-
ties from the pages of "Science and Health", in addition to
tho se already mentioned. They are taken somewha t at ran-
dom.
"Because the muscles of the blacksmith's arm are strongly
developed,
it
does not follow that exercise has produced this
result. . . . The trip hammer is not increased by exercise.
But why not, since muscles are as material as wood or iron?"
(pp.
198
and
199,
"Sci ence and Health").
"Destructive electricity is not the offspring of an Infinite
Good." Which impli es a radical difference betwe en harmful
and harmless electr icity. When it attends strictly to business
and follows the wires, it is a moral agent; but when it breaks
away, burns out a fuse, or sets a house afire, it becomes
immoral
"The Christian Scientist takes the best care of his body
when he leaves it most out of his thoughts." Therefore, the
Spani sh beggars and the Italian lazaroni would make ideal
members of Mrs. Eddy's organization.
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Eddyism, Commonly Called Christian Science 127
"The less min4 there is manifested in matter, the better.
When the unthinking lobster loses his claw, it grows again.
If the science of life were understood . . . the human
limb
would be replaced as readily as the lobster's claw-not with
an artificial limb, but with a genuine one" (p.
489,
"Science
and Health"). It did not seem to occur to the author
that
while the lobster's claw grows again, the lamb's tail does not.
But this is accounted for, no doubt, by the proposition that
"the less mind there is manifested in matter, the better." The
lobster gets his claw again because he has so little mind; the
lamb does not get his tail, and the man does not get his leg,
because each one of them has too much mind. The only hope
for the one-legged man, then, is to become either a lunatic or
a lobster
And yet there are people who are willing to apply to this
farrago of irreligion and nonsense two of the most significant
words in the English language, "Christian" and "Science.''
It
is comforting, however, to know that it will come to an
end by and by, and will be numbered with many other strange
and indefensible infatuations that have "gone glimmering
through
the dream of
things that
were.''
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